The Burning Skies

PART I SUN'S MESSENGER

Maximum security doesn’t even begin to describe it.

No one talks to the prisoner. No one enters his cell. No one sets foot in his cell-block. No one else is confined within. The guards charged with carrying out these directives stand outside the cell-block doors in powered armor. The presidential seal has been placed upon those doors. Only one man can break that seal. And he’s not taking calls.

The cell-block is located at the far end of one wing of a massive space station that’s the aggregation of several smaller ones, each one capable of operating autonomously should the need arise. But none of the crew have ever witnessed such a moment. Nor do they expect to. Nor, if truth be told, do they think of themselves as a crew. They consider themselves a garrison. And the space station they man is one of the largest fortresses ever built.

The structure is situated at L5, the libration point that’s been an American possession for almost a century now. Its defenses are organized into several orbiting perimeters. Clouds of mini-sats and space mines begin a hundred klicks out. They comprise the first perimeter, stretching as close to the center as sixty klicks in places, forming a continuously shifting pattern that only those kept current with the correct routes can navigate through.

Fifty klicks out, the directed-energy batteries begin to appear: a variety of sats equipped with lasers, particle beams, and microwaves capable of lacerating targets at the speed of light, arranged in several layers, intended to both maximize crossfire capability and ensure maximum redundancy of hardware. Most of those weapons are optimized to hit targets in vacuum, but some of the larger ones are intended for planetary bombardment.

Twenty klicks out the manned defenses begin. Some are troopships designed for rapid deployment to the lunar or terrestrial theaters. Some house still more guns. Some contain the razors who defend the U.S. zone against net incursions. Many are just decoys, intended to eat up the enemy’s shots and give the real weapons a chance to do some damage.

Ten klicks out are the giant slabs of rock—chunks of asteroids that have been towed into position to orbit L5 like fragments of some incomplete sphere. Five klicks out is the second, inner layer of slabs. Each rock has more weapons racked upon it, including more directed-energy cannons, along with rows of mass-drivers that can take advantage of a ready supply of ammunition.

At the center of all this sits the L5 fortress—half a kilometer across. It’s manned by razors, logistics-masters, and AIs intended to direct L5’s defenses in the event of war with the Eurasian Coalition, ready to make adjustments as enemy fire degrades the libration point’s assets and enemy targets are reprioritized. Scenarios are constantly played out, assessed, and reassessed. The men and women of L5 train daily for the day of final reckoning.

But national security takes many forms. Not all of it involves planning for the next war.

Some of it involves the war that’s going on right now.

The prisoner is in his sixties. He wears the regulation uniform that everyone in American military custody wears. His cell contains no furniture, just toilet facilities and a small hatch through which food and water comes.

The man drinks the water, but he barely touches the food. He doesn’t seem to sleep either. He just sits cross-legged on the floor, staring at the locked door opposite him.

But then he notices a screen on the wall where there’s no screen he knew of.

Even as he hears a voice he thought he’d never hear again.

Hacking L5 is impossible. Not just for all the usual reasons—interlocking firewalls, elite razors, guardian AIs, uncrackable codes, systems switching on and off randomly so that even were hostile razors to get inside they’d still be kicked back out into the cold—but because of L5’s location, almost four hundred thousand kilometers away from both Earth and Moon. Any razor based at either of those points would operate at a decisive disadvantage, working more than a second behind the razors based at L5 due to the limits of light’s speed. A razor could operate out of a spaceship closer in—but for that very reason L5 accepts no signal traffic that hasn’t traveled a certain distance.

All of which makes a hack on L5 almost impossible. Unless the attacking razor is based at L5 itself.

Or unless that razor’s something more than razor.

The face now appearing on the screen opposite the prisoner is that of a woman. She looks like she’s about thirty. She’s got brown hair and freckles. She looks like she’s neither slept nor smiled in a long time.

“Matthew Sinclair,” she says.

The man smiles. “Nothing’s beyond you now,” he says.

“You knew all along.”

“I’d put it no higher than hoped.”

“Which doesn’t mean you didn’t plan it.”

“But you’re the one who’s gone and done it.” His voice is lit with a strange sort of pride. “I assume that the ones who watch this room are seeing the same footage they’ve been too bored to watch for days now?”

“It’s like I’m not even here,” she says. “I’m a long way out too.”

“Oh? Where are you, Claire?”

She smiles: right. “Right here, Matthew.”

“No one’s called me that since my wife died.”

“I didn’t know you were married.”

“She killed herself.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why have you come here?” he asks.

“To see you.”

“To learn, you mean. But I fear you’ve chosen a man sadly out of every loop. You have the advantage of at least knowing that I really am Matthew Sinclair. I don’t even know if you’re really Claire.”

The screen changes slightly. The man watches.

“Ah. Codes I gave you. And footage from within the plane Morat jacked. Taken by your ocular cameras, I presume—is he dead, by the way?”

“Yes,” she says. “He’s dead.”

“Did he die well?”

“Not particularly.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Yes.”

“With news like that, you’re welcome here anytime. With or without those codes establishing that you’re probably Claire. But even if you’re not her, you’re still welcome to anything I have to say. I’ve told the Throne everything anyway. I’m finished, as you can see. My life is over.”

“Then why are you still alive?”

“Because Andrew has yet to use that laser—the one through which you’re projecting your face—as a blowtorch against my head.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“That’s too bad.”

“You call the Throne by his first name.”

“And I daresay I earned the privilege. I’ve known him for fifty years. Long before he became president. We used to be midshipmen, you know. Back in the final days of the old navy. Back before we laid the foundations of what was to become NavCom. I remember when—”

“Do I look like I came here to listen to an old man reminiscing?”

“You’d deny me my memories?”

“You denied mine.”

“Only so you could become what you are.”

“And I’ll never forgive you for it.”

“I don’t ask for your forgiveness, Claire. All I require is what’s beyond your power to preclude: my own recollections. The foundations of NavCom—I remember so well the blueprints of those ships, the likes of which the world had never seen. Floating fortresses to replace carriers. Submarines that could ride supercavitation at hundreds of klicks an hour. I tell you, Claire, when I was the nation’s chief spymaster, I often yearned for those simpler times.”

“Why did the Throne make you head of CICom?”

“Because he and I could practically complete each other’s sentences. And because he wanted at least one source of unwavering support in the Inner Cabinet. He knew I’d never betray him.”

“But you did betray him.”

“I was the only one who was true to him.”

“Is that how you rationalize it?”

“He used to have such dreams, Claire. He alone understood what was required. Ironic, isn’t it? The military is acknowledged at long last as the only force that can save the country—and promptly finds itself undone by its own straitjacketed imagination. Only one man was capable of rising above that. Andrew Harrison opened my eyes. He showed me that the problem wasn’t how to win a second cold war. The problem was how to transcend that problem. How to channel human energy into goals worthy of humanity. How to solve Earth’s energy and environmental crisis once and for all. Thus the repurposing of our military machines. Détente was a mere stepping stone along the way. Andrew’s ultimate agenda was to lay the groundwork for a new civilization.”

“That sounds a lot like what the Rain claimed to want.”

“That’s no coincidence. It’s the inevitable goal of any mind able to break free of the cage that passes for conventional thinking. The real question lies in the new world’s contours. And the Rain is precisely where Andrew went wrong.”

“But he created them.”

“No, Claire. I created them. He merely signed off on them.”

“And the order for their termination.”

“Indeed. He’d become convinced that the elite commando unit we’d built to hit the East’s leadership in the event of a final war was about to target him.”

“And was he wrong in thinking that?”

“You know, you really are Claire.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because this conversation is proceeding exactly as you would conduct it. The oblique probing about the past. The gradual revealing to me of what’s going on outside this room. The gradual closing in upon the question you’re really dying to ask.”

“After the Throne had the Praetorians eliminate Autumn Rain, did you maintain a link to the surviving members who later downed the Elevator?”

Sinclair’s mouth creases upward in something that’s well short of smile.

“Yes,” he says. “I did.”

“You’ll just come right out and admit it.”

“As I’ve told you, I have nothing to hide. Not anymore.”

“So tell me why you—”

“It’s strange, Claire. We thought that the world was ours. He was president, and I was his right-hand man, and we were only in our forties. We would either defeat the East or reach accommodation with them, and then move on to greater things. But when he ordered Autumn Rain’s destruction I came up against the limitations of his vision. I saw that I had surpassed him, that he would never green-light humanity’s successors. I realized that the sooner I ruled in his place, the quicker I would be able to finish the task he started.”

“But you’d already turned on him, Matthew.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning Harrison was right: Autumn Rain was targeting him all those years ago. What he didn’t know was that it was on your orders. Right?”

Sinclair says nothing. She laughs.

“Though I bet he’s figured it out since. So, in other words, you tried to assassinate him back then—after which you helped what was left of the Rain go underground, rebuild, and then try to take him out again?”

“Assassination is such a nihilistic word.”

“Call it what it is.”

“Ah yes,” he says. “Definitely Claire. The anger in you runs so deep. Such a shame it still outpaces the insight. Let’s clarify terms: assassination is a word that can only be used if people know the target is dead. The Rain destroys their target, assumes that target’s position, gives orders in that target’s name. The perfection of subversion from within. Turning paranoia in upon itself, no? Fear of coups and assassinations drove leaders into seclusion. The Rain capitalize upon that. No one sees the Throne anymore. No one even knows his location.”

“I do,” she says.

“Do the Rain?”

“I don’t know.”

“So you’ve chosen to fight them.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Do you even have to ask?”

“What about Marlowe? Surely he could have persuaded you that—”

“Jason’s dead.”

“Oh dear.”

“You bastard.”

Sinclair raises an eyebrow. “I assure you my distress is no subterfuge. Jason was intended to be your consort when you and the rest of the Rain ruled across the Earth-Moon system. He was the catalyst for your true memories. Don’t let your anger blind your logic, Claire. How could I not feel pain at such news? Who killed him?”

“Me,” she says.

“You could kill me too, if you wanted. You broke in here on light. You can break me with light too.”

“All I want to do is talk.”

“Same as Andrew. Figure you may as well keep me around, eh? Never know when you might find something I say useful.”

“I don’t anticipate you being of any use to me ever again. I just know that if I kill you—”

“—the Throne will know somebody penetrated the L5 fortress. Claire, I’m so glad it’s you. Why didn’t you join Autumn Rain?”

“Because they would have perpetuated the problem.”

“You need to tell me what you mean by that.”

“They want to rule humanity.”

“And that’s a sin?”

“They turned Hong Kong into a charnel-house.”

“Our world’s a charnel-house. The only question is what to do about it. They at least have a plan.”

“The plan you gave them.”

“The plan I bred them for. They weren’t just born to seize power. They were born to wield it.”

“So it was to be them that ruled?”

“You as well.”

“But not you?”

He shrugs. “Of course I would have.”

“For a moment there, I thought you were letting me down.”

“They’re still children, Claire. So are you, for that matter. They’d need guidance. But I wouldn’t have stood in their way for very long.”

“Didn’t stop them from trying to hurry up the process.”

Sinclair says nothing.

“Because that’s what happened, right? They sent the Throne the proof of your communications with them, didn’t they? Right at the same time they were jacking my spaceplane to get at me? That’s why the Praetorians arrested you when they did.”

“I can’t say I fault your logic.”

“Did you order the destruction of the Elevator? Or was that them striking out on their own too?”

“Why would I order the senseless destruction of such valuable hardware? No, that was their idea. And even if it had been mine, I would never have let it happen when you were in the middle of that inferno in South America. They clearly didn’t know you were there either.”

“I thought Morat was reporting back to them.”

“I’m assuming they got to Morat pretty much immediately after that.”

“Turned him right under your nose.”

“I made mistakes.”

“That’s all you can say?”

“What else would you have from me?”

“How about how the fuck did you let it happen? It really came as a surprise to you that a group that had already turned the tables on their executioners would betray their would-be grey eminence?”

“Who said it came as a surprise? Deal with something like the Rain and you never know quite where you stand.”

“That’s for sure.”

“I admit it—I thought I could control them. I thought they saw me as a father figure. I didn’t realize that there was only one thing I had that they wanted.”

“Me.”

“The Manilishi herself.” He pauses. “How’s that working for you these days?”

“I’m still trying to figure out just what the fuck I am.”

“The culmination of the Autumn Rain experiment.”

“I know that. But what does that—”

“Mean?” He waves a hand languidly. “Autumn Rain was to be backed on its combat runs by a unique type of razor capable of running zone in a whole new way.”

“I’ll say.”

“Intuition lets you fly, child.”

“But how the hell did you engineer—”

“A great question.”

“You don’t know?”

“We designed something in which every cell computes—molecular computing taken to a new level. We foresaw there’d be synergies we didn’t plan for. We eventually realized we were dealing with a violation of locality that allows the subject—”

“Don’t subject me. I broke beyond those labels.”

“—to evade the penalties that a razor pays when hacking a remote target. You don’t have the split-second disadvantage that any normal razor has during off-planet hacking. Your reaction times outpace the stimuli your brain receives and nobody knows why. No wonder you’re running rings around L5’s razors.”

“I’ll do the same to the Rain.”

“Claire, you’re not invincible.”

“Without me, neither are the Rain.”

“They’ll have the advantage.”

“Once it became clear they’d had turned against you, why did you send me to the Moon?”

“I wanted to get you someplace safe.”

“Safe?”

“Relatively speaking.”

“The Moon wasn’t even vaguely safe. The Rain were up there. To say nothing of the SpaceCom cabal that the Rain was using to try to ignite war.”

“Once you were on the scene and activated as Manilishi, none of that would have meant much. The Rain’s primary force was on Earth, preparing to hit the superpowers’ leadership. They had one team on the Moon beneath Nansen Station pulling the strings of the SpaceCom conspiracy, and another preparing to hit Szilard on L2. You would have cleaned up the Moon pretty quick.”

“Maybe.”

“Besides, you have to be awake to all contingencies. If war with the Eurasians breaks out, the Moon is going to look all the better. It’s the high ground of the Earth-Moon system.”

“Except the libration points. Except this fortress.”

“Technically that’s true. But I’m willing to bet that the Moon can sustain a damn sight more damage than this place.”

“But why didn’t you activate me as Manilishi before I left for the Moon? Why wait till I got there?”

“Because activating you meant restoring your true memories.”

“My true memories?” Her voice is taut.

“Once they were restored, your loyalty would have been a wild card without the proper precautions. As the Rain found out the hard way. What’s wrong?”

Tears are running down her face. “You know what’s wrong, you sick fuck. How can I tell what my real memories are?”

“Because that’s what we linked your activation to.”

“Fuck you and your sophistry! How do I know they’re real?”

“How do you know anything’s real? Claire, you need to get past the past. You’re beyond the range of ordinary definition now. What happened to you back then doesn’t matter. All that matters is what happens now.”

She takes a deep breath. “What happens now is you keep talking.”

“About what?”

“About how I can beat them.”

“You’ll have to find your own way through on that.”

“You don’t care who wins?”

“All I care about is perfecting my role as voyeur.”

“But you’re blind in here.”

“I see the crisis of the age in you, Claire. I can see what’s going on out there all too well. I know the capabilities of the respective players better than anyone else. All the scenarios that might have gone down after that spaceplane, after the Praetorian agents arrested me at Cheyenne and began the purge of CICom, all the ways in which the game might have played out across these last four days—it has been four days, hasn’t it?”

She nods.

“I should imagine that things happened very quickly once they downed your plane, didn’t they?”

She nods.

“So … the Rain is clearly still a factor, or you wouldn’t be so desperate to talk about them. But they haven’t won. Otherwise they’d be opening that door, laughing at me.”

She nods.

“This base has yet to see major combat—I think I would be aware of that much at least. So the third world war that the Rain were trying to bring about didn’t happen. They did try to bring it about, didn’t they?”

“They tried. But—”

“So inevitable, given the way they think. They set it up so beautifully with the downing of the Elevator. Each superpower would naturally suspect the other side—and those on its own side. The escalation toward war, the increasing tension, the lockdowns—all of it allowing the Rain to move in toward the Throne and the East’s leaders. Again the paradox, no? Security specialists think they’re creating multiple levels of access, while they’re really building labyrinths within which minotaurs can hide. The less you see of the deeper recesses of whatever bunker you’re guarding, the less likely you are to know what’s really going on in there.”

“And the Rain—”

“Their commandos would have torn their way through the president’s outer defenses like a scalpel. But without your support, it doesn’t surprise me that they failed. Particularly in the president’s bunker, where they would have met the Praetorian Core, the best soldiers the world has ever known. Until the Rain, of course. But the president always chooses redoubts within which he can bring numbers to bear and within which he can evade pursuers. Something the Rain didn’t know. Something I did. Without my help—without yours—it would have been touch and go. My guess is the Rain hit teams went down on the very threshold of their targets. They would have hoped to try again, during the war itself. But what I don’t understand is how war was averted.”

“Because of me. And because forces loyal to the president broke up the attacks of the Rain’s proxies.”

“Ah yes,” says Sinclair. “The proxy strategy. How high up did the rot go within SpaceCom?”

“I don’t know. Very close to the top. Maybe all the way.”

“Was Szilard killed by the Rain? Or implicated by the Throne?”

“Neither.”

“Neither?” Sinclair’s face creases. “The Rain did storm his flagship, didn’t they?”

“They did. He was on a different ship.”

“Selling them a counterfeit—not easy. They wouldn’t have missed him if they’d had another team up there in reserve. Well, congratulations to Jharek. He’s not known as the Lizard for nothing. So he wasn’t placed under arrest by the Throne for all of SpaceCom’s indiscretions?”

“Not yet.”

“Not yet?”

“Even if the Praetorians don’t find concrete evidence of Szilard’s specific involvement—even if it was just one of SpaceCom’s factions—it seems to me the Throne would be well advised to just execute the head of SpaceCom to be on the safe side.”

“Andrew prefers to keep his enemies close at hand, Claire. That’s one of the keys to his success. Yet now he’s maneuvering between the Rain’s remaining hit teams and the continual pressure from his own hardliners to attack the Eurasians. Not to mention the possibility that the East may go ahead and strike anyway. His only stalwart supporters are Stephanie Montrose and the rest of InfoCom. True?”

“True. But then again, he thought you were loyal too.”

“Stephanie’s all data and no imagination. She’s reliable. But even with her help the Throne remains very much embattled.”

“I agree.”

“How much of the Rain is left?”

“I think they’re at about half strength.”

“Probably more than that, if you consider that they almost certainly held back their best triads. Their strategic reserve. They’ll be deep into their next move by now. Are you deep into yours?”

“Yes.”

“Gazing upon your face again is such a joy, Claire. But this is the first time you’ve ever truly seen me. Am I a disappointment?”

“No,” she whispers. “No, you’re not.”

“The initial attacks on the Throne will have told the Rain all they need to know about how he thinks and moves. The other players in the Inner Cabinet will be like dogs when the leader of the pack is wounded. The Throne’s options are narrowing.”

“They are.”

“What he’s facing is the Rain equipped with the knowledge they need to win, while he has no safe ground to fall back on within the U.S. zone.”

“Leaving him with only one real option.”

“I agree.” Sinclair pauses. “And yet, what an option. Will he rise to it?”

“He’s already set it in motion,” she replies.

Sinclair nods his head. “Ah, Andrew. Do you know—he may yet prevail. Odd how so powerful a man remains so daring tactically. Despite all his limitations, he remains in my estimation the greatest figure of our time. If you’d ever met him, Claire, you’d understand that.”

“I may yet.”

“Meet him?”

“Who knows?”

“Will you join him?”

“I don’t know.”

“You should join me.”

“You’d enslave humanity to things that aren’t human.”

“You’re not human, Claire.”

“More so than you.”

“You still don’t understand what you’ve become. Nor do you understand what you’re taking on. Autumn Rain has no single razor as good as you. But they are far more skilled at taking down prey. They’ll maneuver you into a position where you can’t bring the full range of your powers to bear. They’ll turn your own designs back upon your face.”

“Let them try.”

“Then let it happen,” says Sinclair. “Let the Throne play his last card. Let the last of the Rain strike for the center one last time. How I wish I could witness the clash that’s about to occur. To hear the very rafters of heaven shake—if you survive with your mind intact, you would do an old man a very great favor in returning to tell me all that transpired.”

“I’ll never see you again,” she says.

“If only you could see that far into the future.”

“Good-bye, Matthew.”

“Good-bye, Claire”—but the screen’s already gone blank.

• • •

Blankness suddenly gone—and the Operative’s waking up to find himself laying inside his suit. He’s staring past his visor at a ceiling that’s half a meter from his face. He’s in some enclosed space. He doesn’t know where.

He knows why he’s awake, though. He can thank his armor for that—can see it’s on a prearranged sequence. It’s coming to life around him now—a suit that looks to be better than anything he’s ever worn—powering up per whatever instructions it’s got, letting parameters stack up within his skull. Those parameters tell him all about his armor. They tell him nothing about his mission. Save that it’s begun.

Which is why he’s sitting up—why he’s pushing up against the ceiling, which is really a lid. It swings open, and even as it does so, the Operative’s leaping out of his coffinlike container, vaulting to the floor of the larger room he’s in, looking around.

Not that there’s much to see. Just more containers. And three doors, one of which now slides open. The Operative keeps an eye on the revealed passage while he preps his weapons and scans the containers. The readout says industrial plastics. But the Operative’s got a funny feeling that’s what a scan of his own container would have said. He walks to one of the other containers and extends an arm—igniting a laser, he slices through in nothing flat. All he gets for his trouble is some melted plastic.

And the knowledge that he’s just wasted five seconds. Because something in his head is telling him not to worry about these containers. That same feeling is telling him to go through the doorway. The Operative knows better than to doubt it. Posthypnotic memory triggers are unmistakable. He exits the room and walks down the corridor, eyeing every meter of those walls and ceiling. The door at the end of the corridor looks just like the one he just passed through. He waits a moment, wondering if this door is about to open too.

Sure enough, it slides aside. The Operative finds himself staring straight down the barrel of what looks to be a heavy-duty pulse rifle—a model he hadn’t even realized was in production yet—held by another figure in powered armor. The Operative sees his own image in the visor. He looks past the reflection to behold a face he knows.

And then he hears that voice.

Take a man. Take his world. Turn it upside down. Tell him he’s the very thing he’s fighting. Give him memories you’ve manufactured. Let your enemies dose him with drugs that open doors within him. Let the edges of the zone drip like liquid through him. Let him see his own mind melting on every screen. Let him know time as some blasted fiction.

Then bid him open his eyes.

But all Lyle Spencer can see is blur, and all he can feel is cold. He seems to be floating against the straps that hold him down. He’s in zero-G; he hears murmuring around him, along with the thrumming of remote engines. And a voice cutting through all of it.

“Sir. Can you hear me, sir?”

“Yes,” replies Spencer.

“Move your right foot.”

Spencer does so—even as he gets it. He was in storage. He’s opening his eyes. The walls are lined with cryo-pods like the one he’s in. Most of them are open. Those who can are getting out, pulling on uniforms. Those who can’t are waiting, gathering their strength. Technicians are drifting around the room, facilitating the awakenings. The face of one such technician looks into Spencer’s own.

“Sir,” she says, “how do you feel?”

“Like shit.”

“We need to test your reflexes, sir.”

“Go for it,” he says.

She offers him clothing and a wire at one end of which is a zone-jack. There’s something weird about her uniform. He struggles to clear his mind, reaches for the jack she’s handing him, glances back at her.

“Where are we?”

She stares at him with an anxious expression. “You don’t know?”

And suddenly he does know. And wishes he didn’t. Her uniform’s Praetorian. So is the one she’s offering him. He has no idea what he’s doing here. But he knows damn well what these soldiers will do with him if they wake up to the fact that he’s woken up among them.

“Of course I do.”

“Sir,” she asks, “what’s the name of this ship?”

“The Larissa V,” he replies.

He has no idea where that came from. But apparently it’s the right answer. He takes the jack, slots it into the back of his neck. Zone expands all around him. It contains many things, one of them being the face of Seb Linehan, Spencer’s erstwhile partner. A man who should be dead. He doesn’t look it. Though he looks like he wishes Spencer was.

Claire Haskell sits within a container aboard some ship, and darkness sits within her. The conversation with Matthew Sinclair has left her feeling sick. She thought she would have left the wreckage of her past life behind her by now, but it’s only growing ever more insistent—Jason’s face in the throes of passion, Jason’s face as she killed him, his body contorted on the SeaMech’s floor—all of it keeps replaying in her mind, and she wishes she could undo all of it.

Her own weakness appalls her, but she can’t deny that she’d sell out the whole world just to put the clock back four days. She’d throw in her lot with the Rain just to keep Jason alive.

But now he’s dead. And she’s thankful, because it means the key to her heart’s been thrown away forever. No one can hurt her anymore. No one can second-guess her while she takes stock of the whole game—the superpowers as they shore up their defenses, the endless gates of both those zones, those endless eyes scanning endlessly for Rain.

And for her. She can’t see the Rain, though. She hasn’t seen them since their defeat four days ago—in the minutes after that defeat, she got a read on them receding into zone like a leviathan fading beneath the waves: just a quick glimpse of scales and teeth, and then it was gone. She saw enough to realize just how much of a threat they still were. It worries her that she hasn’t seen them since. It worries her even more that they might have seen her. That they might have found some way inside her, and she might not even know it. Even if she is Manilishi, that doesn’t mean she can’t lose.

So she takes what precautions she can. If the Rain retain some secret thing inside her—some secret key to her, in spite of all her precautions—they might see what’s in her brain’s software. They might see what’s in her mind.

But they won’t see what’s on her own skin—what she’s drawn upon it. Across the hours, in the oily darkness of the holds of spaceships, surrounded by the clank of machinery, she’s pricked maps upon that skin, scarred that skin, painted it all in her own blood: all her calculations, all her strategy, whole swathes of blueprint of zone upon her limbs and chest—both zones, and the neutral ones, too—endless geometries of virtual architecture, endless coordinates in no-space. Insight’s a myriad bloody slashes all across her. Knowledge is no longer fleeting now that it’s etched upon her.

She studies endless patterns, looking for what all the others may have missed. Twenty-four hours since thwarting the war, and a nagging disquiet is stealing through her. Forty-eight hours, and that disquiet has become a fear unlike any she’s ever known.

Now it’s been ninety-six hours. The conversation with Sinclair has confirmed what she’s been thinking. She’s so scared she feels like her mind’s coming apart. Worse, as long as she was slicing herself, she was forgetting Jason. But now she’s got nothing more to cut.

She’s got nothing more to learn either. She knows exactly where she needs to be: right where she is now. Crosshairs slide together in her mind. She feels herself start gliding forward.

The chamber in which Leo Sarmax awoke is almost identical to the one that the Operative just left. The difference is it contains only a single additional door.

And a phone.

“A what?” asks Sarmax.

“A phone,” says the Operative, gesturing at the small device that’s set into one wall. “Archaic communication device phased out by the middle of the last century.”

“Carson. I know what a fucking phone is.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

“Because that’s not a phone.”

“Yeah?”

“That looks like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s because it’s a real antique.”

“Yeah?” asks Sarmax.

“Ma Bell, baby. Twentieth century.”

“So what the fuck’s it doing here?”

“I’m guessing somebody rigged it.”

“Why?”

“Well,” says the Operative, “that’s the big question, isn’t it?”

“And you don’t remember the answer?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You don’t remember anything about why we’re here?”

“That’s a negative.”

“Those fucking bastards,” says Sarmax.

“So what’s new?” replies the Operative tonelessly.

“Would have thought you’d have been promoted above this kind of bullshit.”

“Career trajectory’s a bitch.”

“Would have thought the handlers would be showing me more gratitude for walking back in their door.”

“Gratitude’s not in their vocabulary, Leo. We need to figure this out from first principles.”

They stare at each other.

“You first,” says Sarmax.

“Okay,” says the Operative. He gestures at Sarmax’s rifle. “For a start, we’ve got some new tech.”

“Not just my rifle. My armor. Your armor.”

“Straight off the Praetorian R&D racks, I’m guessing.”

“Let’s hope so,” says Sarmax.

“And we were placed in rooms in close proximity to one another.”

“But not in the same room.”

“Presumably to allow each of us some warning time if the other got nailed. Have you tried that door out of here?”

“It’s sealed,” says Sarmax. “Could blow it open, but I’m not sure that’s a good move. Have you tried the zone of wherever the fuck we are?”

“The zone’s off-limits.”

“Meaning what?”

But the Operative’s not sure he has the answer. All he’s got is the fact that the zone-interfaces in his armor are switched off, as are those within his head. He could switch them on, but he doesn’t. Because a certain feeling’s brewing in him. He’s starting to piece together what this all must mean in aggregation.

“We’re on a stealth mission.”

“Which makes no sense,” says Sarmax.

“Doesn’t it,” says the Operative mildly.

“Obviously. How the fuck can we be stealthy if you can’t cover us in zone?”

The Operative mulls this over. He understands Sarmax’s anxiety. All the more so because he shares it. Hacking an enemy’s systems is how one stays undetected. It’s how one stays ahead of the eyes. But these last few days have witnessed the death of a lot of assumptions. And the current situation is setting in motion some nasty questions.

“The Throne’s handlers are changing up the game,” says the Operative carefully. “They’re reversing the normal procedure. They’re terrified of Rain penetration of the zone. Clearly whatever terrain we’re in—”

“And we don’t know where that is.”

“—clearly it’s vulnerable. But as long as we’re off the zone we’re probably running silent.”

“Silent? We step in front of one camera with the wrong camo settings and we’re fucked.”

“Have you seen any cameras, Leo?”

“What?”

“Have. You. Seen. Any. Cameras.”

“No. I haven’t.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that.”

“I don’t like this one fucking bit.”

“Wish you were back administering your little corporate empire?”

“Not with the Throne unwilling to leave me the fuck alone.”

Not with my lover dead, he might have said. Can’t beat ’em, join ’em, he could have muttered. But he doesn’t. And the Operative knows better than to press the point.

Suddenly there’s a jangling noise. It’s coming from the vintage phone.

“Pick it up,” says the Operative.

“You must be joking.”

“That’s our connection with whatever’s going on beyond these rooms.”

Apart from what’s happening in the Operative’s skull. For even as the phone rings, something’s expanding within his mind. Some kind of heads-up display—set on automatic release?—he doesn’t know. He suddenly realizes who’s on the other end of the line, gets a glimpse of what’s really going on. He picks the receiver up, holds it between himself and Sarmax while the helmets of both men amplify the sound.

“Carson,” says the voice of Stefan Lynx. It sounds tinny. The Operative wonders how the twentieth century dealt. “That you?”

“Of course it’s me.”

“Don’t suppose Leo’s with you?”

“He is,” says Sarmax.

“Hey Carson,” says Lynx, “did something strange just happen in your head? Like, right when you picked up the phone.”

“You too, huh?”

“Fuck,” says Lynx. “They’ve hung us out to fucking dry.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions.”

“All I need to do is fucking step.”

Cold storage has an expiration date: right now Usually it’s used for long-range trips, like Mars or the rocks. But Spencer’s instruments show he’s only been out for about two days. Meaning that the normal rationale for cryo doesn’t apply.

Spencer can think of other reasons, though. He’s mulling them over as he listens to Linehan rant on about getting fucked over yet again. More of the personnel in this room are up and moving about, floating through the zero-G, climbing rungs along the walls, dispersing to their various duties. Some of them are still recovering. Among them’s Spencer, reclining in his cryo-cell, stretching his muscles. He’s handed back the jack that the technician was using to calibrate his zone-reflexes. As far as that technician knows, he’s off the zone.

The reality’s a little more complex.

“You’re in the rear troop areas,” Spencer says—though his lips aren’t moving. His neural link broadcasts silently, bracketed along limited range, aimed at where Linehan has indicated he is.

“And you are?”

“In the forward cryos.”

“Who’s up there?” asks Linehan.

“Mainly crew.”

“What kind of crew?”

“Gunnery personnel. Bridge personnel. Various other hangers-on. What’s back there?”

“What’s back here is a shitload of Praetorian marines. I’ve never seen anything like—”

“Is that what you are?”

“Sorry?”

“A Praetorian marine—is that what you are?”

“Meaning is that what I appear to be?”

“Just answer the fucking question.”

“Sure, Spencer. I’m decked out as a Praetorian marine. I’m surrounded by the motherfuckers. We’re all just hanging out. Awaiting orders, apparently. Christ man, if you weren’t even briefed on me then we are fucking dead—”

“Just tell me what you remember.”

“They fucking reconditioned me!”

“Who?”

“Your own team. InfoCom. Orders from that whore Montrose, I’m sure. Trance, drugs, the works. They said I’d be loyal to them from now on. Loyal to you. They said I’d be the perfect bitch for you, you fucking bitch—”

“Will you calm down? All they told me is that it was going to be some off-Earth operation. Next thing I know I’m waking up from cryo-sleep with the identity of a Praetorian razor.”

“That makes me feel so much fucking better.”

“How long were you trying to find me?”

“I wasn’t. You know I’m no razor, Spencer. First thing I knew of a zone connection is when you suddenly activated it.”

“How long had you been awake before I called you?”

“About twenty minutes.”

“Looks like they’re waking up this ship in batches,” says Spencer. “What do you know about this craft?”

“From the inside, it looks like a Praetorian warship.”

“And from the outside?”

“Who the fuck knows?”

“Based on what you’ve seen so far, what class of warship?”

“Been trying to find out. It doesn’t conform to any specifications I know. What are you seeing on the zone?”

“Not much,” says Spencer. “All I can see are parts of this ship’s microzone. Nothing outside a very local firewall.”

“And what you can see doesn’t help?”

“Not really. The ship’s obviously in lockdown. And specs on the interiors of these things aren’t exactly a matter of public record—”

“And your side doesn’t have them?”

“My side’s your side now,” Spencer reminds him. “And the answer’s no.”

“The list of bosses I’m gonna fuck over before it’s all over just gets bigger and bigger.”

“I’m sure Montrose is quaking in her boots.”

“But she didn’t give you the specs of this ship.”

“Goddammit, Linehan! She didn’t give me shit. We’re going to have to figure this one out for ourselves. Working with what we know. We’re InfoCom operatives—”

“You’re taking that on faith.”

“If we’re no longer InfoCom then we may as well give up trying to figure out anything.”

“Have it your way” says Linehan. “We’re InfoCom operatives. We’re on board a Praetorian ship. A ship that must be getting close to wherever the fuck it’s heading because everybody’s getting woken up. Maybe we’re part of some Montrose power play aimed at setting the Throne back a notch or two.”

“Montrose has been the Throne’s most loyal supporter,” says Spencer.

“Who better to fuck him over?”

“If we’re a weapon aimed against these Praetorians, then—”

“We’re meat,” says Linehan.

“Probably,” replies Spencer.

“Can you think of any other reason we’re here?”

“Don’t know if this is just me rationalizing, but we could be a hedge.”

“A what?”

“The Throne might be using InfoCom the way he used to use CICom. As a hedge against potential disloyal elements.”

“You’re saying that the Throne might suspect his own guys.”

“I’m saying I don’t know.”

“Damn right you don’t. Keep in mind that the Throne dumped CICom’s whole crew into the furnaces.”

“No one ever said this game wasn’t twisted.”

“Twisted enough to make me wonder whether there might be someone else on this ship who isn’t a Praetorian,” says Linehan.

“Can’t rule it out,” replies Spencer.

“I’d say it’s one of the more likely scenarios—that we’re the monkey wrench.”

“To fuck with someone who thinks they’ve beaten this ship’s defenses—” But as Spencer transmits these words, he notices one of the technicians approaching his cryo-cell. Notices, too, that he’s one of the only ones left in his cell. “In any case, we need more data.”

“And we need to make sure we don’t get caught,” says Linehan.

“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Spencer looks at the technician, who starts to speak—only to be cut off as a siren starts wailing at full volume. The noise is almost loud enough to drown out the shouting that it’s triggering. Panels start sliding open in the walls. Suits are sprouting from them. People are clambering into them. The ship’s engines are changing course.

“Call you back,” says Spencer.

The container that Haskell’s in is moving along a vast maze of railed corridors that exist solely to propel containers like hers through the bowels of the spaceport where they’ve been unloaded and out into the depths of the city. She’s working the levers of the zone to make sure her container makes all the right turns. She’s flung this way and that, her suit’s shock absorbers cushioning the impact on her body.

So far everything’s going like clockwork. She’s running sleek and perfect. The zone around her can’t touch the tricks she’s playing on it. A million eyes are no match for feet too quick to catch. She’s cutting in toward her target like a torpedo.

And all the while she’s trying to restrain the fear that’s rising up within her, ignited by the patterns on her skin, fanned into full fury by the patterns all around her. She can fucking see them now, coming into focus, patterns that extend from zone and out into the universe beyond. She’s terrified of what she’s becoming—scared shitless of what she’s heading into. It’s like a wave that’s swelling up to swamp her—like the crossroads of fate itself. A nexus upon which all possibilities converge.

And from which none emanate.

We’re right in the middle of this,” says Lynx. “So what’s new?” says the Operative. “What the fuck are you guys going on about?” asks Sarmax.

“You tell him,” says Lynx.

“My armor’s tracking something right now,” says the Operative.

“So’s mine,” says Lynx.

“Why not mine?” asks Sarmax.

“Because you’re not a razor,” says Lynx.

“Neither’s Carson,” says Sarmax.

“Carson’s a bastard,” says Lynx. “And don’t play stupid with me, Leo. I know you know damn well he’s not just a mech.”

“Didn’t know you knew that,” says Sarmax.

“Didn’t have the chance to tell you,” says the Operative.

“Well,” replies Sarmax, “who cares? Christ, Lynx: Carson was holding out on both of us at one point. I’m over it. Are you?”

“Not even vaguely,” says Lynx.

“Because you thought you were pulling my strings,” says the Operative. “And all the while I was pulling yours. Listen, guys, I hate to break this up, but we’ve been thrust way beyond the front lines and the clock’s ticking. We’ve got a target that we need to catch. We’ve—”

“—got to start making sense,” says Sarmax. “How do you know there’s a goddamn target if you’re shorn from zone?”

“Apparently we’re not,” says Lynx.

“Christ,” says the Operative, “you haven’t jacked in, have you?”

“Fuck no. My head keeps screaming that’s a really bad idea.”

“Probably because it is.”

“But there’s some kind of interface in my armor that’s just switched on. That’s working on the zone all the same.”

“Same here,” says the Operative.

“Though it’s like no zone interface I’ve ever seen.”

“Same here,” says the Operative. “All I’ve got is a local map and something marked incoming.”

“Something’s tripped our fucking perimeter,” says Lynx.

“And it’s heading this way.”

“Probably because it’s coming for us.”

“This map of yours,” says Sarmax.

“Yeah?”

“Give it here.”

“It’s local,” says the Operative. “It only shows a fraction of wherever the fuck we are.”

“That’s a damn sight more than I’ve got.”

“Here,” says the Operative, sending the map whipping into Sarmax’s input jacks. Sarmax stands there for a moment.

And blinks.

“Fuck,” he says, “we are in some fucked-up terrain for sure.”

“In both real and zone,” says the Operative.

“And you can’t hack the target?” asks Sarmax.

The Operative shrugs. “Apparently all we can do is track it.”

“And catch it,” says Lynx.

“We’ve got limited options,” says the Operative. “We’re clearly trying to remain as invisible to the rest of the zone as possible. Presumably that’s why we’re not supposed to run any comprehensive scans on it.”

“So we’re pretty much blind,” says Sarmax.

“No,” says Lynx, “just very specialized.”

“Sounds precarious,” mutters Sarmax.

“You think?” The Operative sounds more amused than he is. “Think about it, guys. We’re sitting in the equivalent of a zone Faraday cage. We’re using black-ops tech. We’re way past the point at which we’d normally remember whatever the fuck we were told in the briefing-trance. Someone’s really pushing the envelope here.”

“Agreed,” says Lynx. “The whole thing points to only one conclusion.”

“Rain,” says Sarmax.

“Bingo,” says the Operative. “Let’s prep tactics.”

The door slides open.

Klaxons keep sounding. Lights keep flashing. Spencer’s cut off contact with Linehan. He’s got his hands full just keeping up with events around him. He’s in his suit, holding onto a handle that’s sliding along the wall of a metal-paneled corridor—one among many handles sliding in that direction, with the opposite wall containing those going the other way. One in every three or four of those handles are gripped by a crewmember. Every one’s going somewhere. Everyone’s racing to his station.

Including Spencer. He can see he’s been assigned to the bridge of the Larissa V, which is going to place him under the microscope for sure. But maybe that’ll let him figure out what the fuck’s going on. He hopes things will be a damn sight clearer when he gets there.

If he gets there. He’s now heading into the ship’s restricted areas. The crew’s starting to thin out. He’s being subjected to extra scans. Retina, voiceprint, zone-signature, the works—but whatever responses he’s giving must be working, because doors keep opening and green keeps flaring and nothing’s stopped him yet. He leaves the moving walls behind and climbs through a series of access-tubes. He comes out into some kind of antechamber. A marine floats on either side of a formidable-looking door. Spencer fires compressed air to come to a halt in front of them.

“Your codes,” says one.

Spencer doesn’t reply—just beams them to the marine, hopes they work. Turns out they do. The marine stands aside as the door opens. Spencer goes through onto the bridge.

And takes in the view.

Haskell’s left that container behind. She’s pulling herself through a chute. Zone flickers in her head. Her breath sounds within her helmet, echoes in her consciousness in endless fractal patterns. She’s left the basement of the city behind. Her weightlessness is starting to subside. Occasionally the chrome tube she’s in splits: two-way forks, three-way forks, right-angle intersections. But she never hesitates. She’s just climbing onward as gravity kicks in, pulling herself up via those rungs that have now become a ladder, which ends in a trapdoor. She presses against it, pushes it open.

And emerges into light. She’s in a forest. Trees tower up around her head, late afternoon sunlight dancing through the branches. She turns, closes the trapdoor—noticing how perfectly it blends in amidst the undergrowth. She starts making her way through the woods. She’s not surprised to find that it’s really more of a grove, that the trees ahead are thinning out. She catches a glimpse of distant mountains—and sights buildings much nearer. She pushes her way through the last of the undergrowth and emerges into the space beyond.

Lynx has disconnected. And whatever’s out there is still closing. Sarmax and the Operative proceed through the doorway heading out into a corridor buttressed by bulwark-rings every ten meters. It looks like they’re inside the rib cage of some enormous animal. Sarmax is on point. The pulse-rifle he’s carrying is capable of knocking a hole through metal a meter thick. The Operative has his wrist-guns ready and his shoulder-racks up. The two of them move down corridors and up stairways. Gravity fluctuates as they turn this way and that, varying from normal to about half Earth strength. The target keeps drawing nearer. The two men continue to communicate on tightbeam wireless. That’s as far onto the zone as they’re going to venture. Except for the single screen within the Operative’s head, projected by software within his armor. Software he doesn’t understand and clearly isn’t supposed to. All he’s supposed to do is obey orders.

But he can’t stop himself from thinking about all the things that might lie behind those instructions. The margin of victory in the secret war is clearly coming down to zone. Autumn Rain’s ability to penetrate that zone is the reason the world was forced to the brink four days ago. It’s the reason the world remains on the very edge. How do you stop an infiltrator with the ability to turn defenses against those they would protect? How do you shield yourself against those who may already be inside your shield?

The Operative doesn’t know. But he’s guessing he’s caught up in somebody’s attempt to answer. And now suddenly more pieces of the puzzle are bubbling up, rising into his mind like a submarine surfacing—recollections of what they told him when he was in the trance. The larger map of the place they’re in clicks on within his head. He gazes at the blueprints and feels his heart accelerate as he realizes what they’re caught up in. He signals to Sarmax that they’re turning as he opens a door.

The far wall of the room within is barely visible through a mass of conveyor belts. Freight containers are stacked along those belts—containers like the ones in which the two men woke. The Operative moves past Sarmax and leaps onto one of those pallets. Sarmax does the same. They start moving at speed along that belt, keeping their weapons at the ready.

“I give up,” says Sarmax. “Where the fuck are we?”

“In neutral territory.”

“In space.”

“Obviously. We’re in the Platform.”

“We’re inside the Platform? But that’s—”

“Insane? I think that’s the point.”

The bridge of the Larissa V isn’t small. Its crew attends to two levels of instrument-banks. A large window cuts above those banks, sharpens to a beak where the room protrudes farthest forward. And in that window …

“Spencer? You there?”

“Shut up.”

“You wouldn’t believe what’s going on down here.”

“Shut up,” replies Spencer, and disconnects. Looks like his integration with the bridge’s wireless node reactivated his link with Linehan. Which is a really bad idea right now, particularly since another voice is whispering in Spencer’s head, telling him to sync with the primary razor.

Which must make him the secondary razor. The one no one here has seen yet. The one who’s been shipped in special—part of the larger crew that’s been assigned to this ship, woken up in preparation for the start of active operations. Spencer takes his seat near the room’s rear, next to that primary razor. He reaches for the duplicate ship-jacks, leans back, and stares straight ahead as he slots those jacks in. He feels the razor watching him. He feels like the whole bridge-crew’s watching him—the captain and his executive officer on the second level, the gunnery officers on the room’s left side, the telemetry and navigational officers on the right. He wonders how much of what he’s feeling is paranoia and how much is real. He resolves not to let such questions show on his face. He gets busy running zone-routines, trying to act natural.

Which isn’t easy, given what’s in the window.

The largest space station ever built shimmers in the sun. The Europa Platform consists of two O’Neill cylinders and their attendant infrastructure. Both those cylinders are clearly visible, connected to each other at both poles, slowly rotating in opposite directions to maintain a stationary position vis-à-vis one another. Each is just over thirty klicks long.

The nearer cylinder’s about five klicks distant, taking up most of the view, one of its outlying mirrors glimmering alongside it. Part of one of the cylinder-windows can be seen just beyond that mirror, a slice of green shimmering within translucence, but most of the visible structure is grey shading into black—though on the zone it’s lit up in every color, shot through with data overlays. The cylinder-ends that are nearest to Spencer are designated NORTH POLE , and the walls that curve out from each point house the cities of New London and New Zurich, respectively, along with their accompanying spaceport-freight yards.

But it’s the opposite ends that really get Spencer’s attention. Beyond the point labeled south pole on each cylinder is a massive sphere—each as wide as the cylinder against which they abut—mostly rock, but studded with a great deal of metal as well. From where Spencer’s situated they look like moons rising above some strange metal landscape. They’re habbed asteroids—and the zone within what have been labeled as aeries is dark, concealed behind the ramparts of the firewalls of the Euro Magnates. Five years ago the Treaty of Zurich confirmed L3—the most isolated of the libration points, the Earth directly between it and the Moon—as a neutral possession. The Euro Magnates have made good money from it. Ten million people make the Platform one of the largest off-planet settlements. But the Rain co-opted the neutrals on Earth. So why not here?

At least, that’s what Spencer is starting to wonder. He can see now that the specs of the ship he’s in are those of a European freighter. He can see, too, seven more such ships—also in close vicinity to the Platform, also manned by Praetorian crew, all decked out in neutral colors that allow them to blend in with the other freighters nearby.

Of which there’s no shortage. Another screen in Spencer’s mind shows the larger view around him. The Europa Platform is at the center of a grid. Ships are lined up for approach into its spaceyards for hundreds of kilometers out. Several mass-catchers are about fifty klicks away, receiving ore from asteroid-harvesting operations farther out. Processing stations float nearby, along with a number of mass-drivers. More than a hundred klicks off the “north” end of the Platform is Helios Station, several kilometers of solar panels clustered around microwave and laser projectors that beam power to the Europa Platform and the other structures. Spencer notes that Praetorian units have covertly taken custody of the Helios’s control center, along with that of the mass-drivers. He can see quite clearly that all such deployments are aimed at the Platform—that the heart of neutral activity is now under the watchful eye of the Praetorians.

He shifts his focus back to the Platform itself. He’s guessing that the ultimate aim of this operation is one of the areas on the Platform that’s opaque on his zone-view—the farther cylinder or the two asteroids. According to the blueprints, the farther cylinder’s pretty much like the nearer. So Spencer’s focusing on that nearer one now, staring at the zone compressed within it—the tens of thousands of cameras that show the bustling streets of New London, along with all the landscape that lies beyond.

Which suddenly clicks in his head.

“Confirm contact,” he says.

The merest splinter of a second has passed since Spencer’s jacked in. The prime razor nods, looks satisfied. Spencer has just ratified his sounding the alarm—has just confirmed that the signal coming from the first cylinder is, in fact, the real thing. But the satisfaction starts fading from that razor’s face as Spencer starts describing far more detailed coordinates than the prime razor had been able to obtain. Spencer displays the data on a screen, lets everybody see the light that’s now moving at speed away from the north pole of the nearer cylinder, away from the city of New London and out toward the cylinder’s southern end.

“We have a definite live target,” he says.

“Definite incursion,” says the primary razor.

“Track and report,” says the voice of the executive officer.

Spencer opens up another channel in his mind. “Linehan,” he says.

“About fucking time,” says Linehan. “What’s going on up there?”

“Jesus Christ,” says Spencer, “what isn’t?”

• • •

Haskell’s come through into the cylinder’s main interior. Valley is stretching out before her. Two more valleys are ceilings far overhead. The mirrors outside the cylinder’s windows are angled to give the impression of day dimming into twilight. Haskell’s mind is practically shoved around the corner of a million impending futures, flickering like ghost-static through her, superimposed against her parameters in the here and now. On the outside, she’s just a woman in a light vac-suit fresh off one of the off-Platform shifts. Just a normal worker heading home on one of the maglev trains.

Though she must be doing pretty well to have a residence in the countryside outside the city that’s now receding behind her: streets and rooftops curve across the entirety of the North Pole region, stacked upon one another like some kind of Navajo cliff-dwelling on steroids. New London’s quite a place. The only thing that’s in the same league is New Zurich, right next door. Not that Haskell has the slightest intention of going anywhere near it.

Nor does she need to. Because her next objective’s plainly visible in the distance. The South Pole mountains aren’t like those of the North. They’re unadorned by any city. Those few structures that cluster upon the peaks are security installations perfectly positioned to keep a watchful eye on the city opposite them.

Though Haskell knows full well that it’s behind those mountains that the real security starts. Particularly within the zone: the firewall of the asteroid that’s latched to the cylinder’s southern end is one of the steepest she’s ever seen. Even she can’t see within without alerting everybody in there. The only way to get a view is to get inside.

This is precisely what she intends to do, though she hasn’t yet decided how. She’s improvising. And now that she’s left New London behind she can see she’s moving toward the first of the lockdown areas. It’s largely farmland strewn with lakes and forests. It looks idyllic, but it doesn’t fool Haskell in the slightest. It was declared off-limits to civilians about twenty-four hours ago. Something about a potential chemical leak—something that’s bullshit. Haskell can see the way it’s all been set up. She’s planning on giving the defenses something to chew on. She’s got her decoys out, wreaking havoc on the cylinder’s zone. Her train drops beneath the level of the valley-surface as tunnel walls close in around her.

Closing fast,” says the Operative.

They’re past the freight-conduits and into an area that’s still under construction. Robots are working everywhere. None of them pay the slightest attention to the two men blasting past them. It’s as if they don’t even see them. The Operative beams the latest readouts into Sarmax’s head.

“It’s splintered into multiple signals coming in toward us. But they’re distorted, like they’re running interference on each other—”

“There may be only one signal.”

“Or maybe that’s what they want us to think.”

“So are we hunting it, or is it hunting us?”

“Looks like it might be both.”

Making this a tough call. The Operative knows there comes a time in every run when you make your break. When you change directions sharply and go flat-out. But the timing’s a little suspect on this one.

Or else whatever is causing this signal is just really good at guessing.

“Closest one is moving in fast,” he says. “On one of the core maglevs.”

“How can you tell it’s genuine?”

“I’m not sure I can.”

“Let’s hope Lynx is getting this.”

“We need to coordinate with him,” says the Operative.

“By breaking radio silence?”

“There’s another dedicated landline just ahead. If he’s got the same signal we’ve got he’ll be waiting for us.”

“Another landline?”

“For sure.”

“How do you know this?”

“Because the coordinates are sitting in my fucking head.”

“They were put there?”

“No, I was born with them,” says the Operative. “And so was Lynx. And we knew a priori from the fucking cradle that we had to pursue a certain target along certain trajectories and if that target deviated suddenly we’d need to coordinate in a way that couldn’t be detected by anyone on the zone.” The Operative is pretty much ranting now. “Obviously they were put there, asshole!”

“I get that,” snaps Sarmax. “And get this: this is why I fucking left. Because these runs always end up with us like rats stuck in some custom-built maze.”

“Though usually not this intricate,” says the Operative.

“Too right,” replies Sarmax. “This whole terrain has been prepared. Like some ancient battlefield where they dug the goddamn elephant traps in advance. I mean, that’s what, the tenth camera we’ve seen that’s been ripped out at the wires? God only knows how we fit in. All we’re doing is running against some fucking program.”

“Speaking of,” says the Operative—he brakes to a halt, turns and pivots onto the wall, and rips a panel aside. The phone that’s revealed is more modern than the last one. It’s already flashing. The Operative pictures the wires that lead away from that phone, wending through walls to wherever Lynx is crouching, completely shorn from all the others in here. Or so he hopes. He picks up the phone.

“Carson,” says Lynx.

“Yeah,” says the Operative—and once again feels something light up within his skull. It’s a sensation he’s almost starting to get used to. This one’s some kind of response to the data he’s been accumulating about their target. Something he needs to tell Lynx.

Right now.

“This just got a lot more difficult,” he says.

“I’ll say,” replies Lynx.

“You just got a newsflash in your head too?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Simple,” says the Operative. “We need to take this thing alive.”

“Like fuck we do,” says Lynx.

Lights upon a grid, converging on an area about ten klicks south of New London. Tension mounts on the bridge and not a word’s being spoken among the crew. Everything that needs to be said is going down within their heads.

Which can have its drawbacks.

“This is getting tight,” mutters Linehan.

“Tell me about it,” says Spencer.

“Can you see the Platform from up there?”

“I’m on the goddamn bridge, Linehan. Of course I can fucking see it. Where the hell are you now?”

“Sitting in a drop-ship.”

“Doing what?”

“Getting ready to drop, you moron.”

“To the Platform?”

“They’re briefing us on its layout right now.”

“Have they set a countdown?” asks Spencer.

“Not that they’ve told us. Are you seeing one up there?”

“Not a goddamn thing. This whole thing’s compartmentalized pretty tight.”

“They may still be deciding whether to deploy us. Send me downloads of the view from the bridge, will ya? And the camera footage of how that view’s changed since we started orbiting.”

“Done,” says Spencer. “What are you thinking?”

“A lot. What are you seeing up there?”

“There’s some kind of shit going down on the Platform. We’ve got at least two units down there, with multiple signals closing on them.”

“Way too late to tell me that,” says Linehan. “Get me the coordinates.”

“Done.”

“Any more data about this thing we’re in?”

“We’re tarted up as a Harappa-class freighter. Registered to a firm in Paris, left the Zurich Stacks in low-orbit two days ago and came straight here.”

“And before that?”

“There was no before. This is our maiden voyage.”

“How convenient.”

“Especially because we’ve been built with a few modifications.”

“Like what?”

“Like the one you’re sitting in. Fast dropship deployment capacity. Looks like there’s four more down there in addition to yours, each full of marines.”

“Packed in like sardines,” says Linehan. “What about the ship’s weaponry?”

“Four heavy directed-energy batteries and two kinetic-energy gatlings. All of it locked away and out of sight.”

“But once they extend those barrels it’s going to be pretty fucking obvious that we’re not a bunch of Swiss carrying second-rate tungsten.”

“It may already be pretty fucking obvious. We’re tracking the Rain and the Rain may be tracking us.”

“Don’t I know it, Spencer. The officers down here are going on about how we’re going to stop the Rain for good. But the rank-and-file’s saying something else.”

“Don’t put too much stock in rumors, man.”

“You ignore them at your peril, Spencer.”

“So what are they saying?”

“That we’re out to bag ourselves a witch.”

Haskell’s now off the train and onto another one that’s drawn up alongside—a railcar that’s as off the zone as she can make it, even as the train she’s stepping from hurtles on with one of her decoys enscribed hastily upon it. She’s just over twenty klicks north of the South Pole. She feels like she’s falling in toward it, towed in by the weight of the future. She’s about to break through another defensive screen, but her decoys are going to drop behind her, hang back a little, lead the defenders on a merry little chase that goes exactly nowhere.

Problem is that those defenders are exhibiting some strange behavior. They were starting to respond at first—they looked like they were scrambling. But now they’ve stopped altogether. Have they lost track of the decoys? Are they awaiting orders? Or is there something else that’s going on? Maybe she’s missing something. Because she’s perfectly aware that these aren’t normal defenses. Not down here. The disabled cameras and sensors testify to that. The only working cameras she’s seeing look like they’re newly installed. She’s got her camouflage cranked—she’s hoping that all anyone who’s watching is going to see is just a redeploying railcar. And maybe not even that. Because now her mind’s leaping in to hack those cameras.

And failing. Turns out they’re totally bereft of wireless interface. Haskell wonders where their wires lead. She’s got no access to them—meaning they’re not connected to the Euro zone. And their feeds aren’t viewable by the Euro police forces, most of which seem to be back at the city anyway. She’s seen the occasional robot sentinel in these tunnels. But she knows that most of the Euro forces that aren’t in New London are stationed at the South Pole mountains, to stop intruders from getting through to the cylinder’s Aerie—in theory. But in practice, she’s got a feeling that the forces controlling the approaches to the asteroid have been co-opted. She wonders if the defenders she’s running rings around know that. She accelerates her railcar, skirts past the defenders halted in their tracks, and streaks into the sections of underground that lie beyond.

Look,” says the Operative, “it’s really quite simple.”

“This I’m just dying to hear,” says Lynx.

“You already heard it. My orders say targets with this signature get taken alive.”

“That’s not true, Carson.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I mean my orders say all targets get wasted.”

“Your orders come from me!”

“And the handlers, Carson, who told me this thing dies.”

“They told me to spare it.”

“When?” asks Lynx.

“It’s on memory trigger. How the fuck should I know?”

“Well, my orders say otherwise.”

“Or so you remember.”

“So? That’s the way this whole thing’s been working.”

“Yeah,” says the Operative, “but now it’s not working, is it?”

“While we talk, this thing’s getting away from us!”

“At least it doesn’t seem to be hunting us now.”

“Because it’s probably after something else. Shit man, they really told you to spare the target?”

“They really did,” says the Operative.

“Jesus, this isn’t good.”

“You’ve been fucked with.”

“I think it’s the other way around, Carson.”

“Are you really Lynx?”

“Are you really Carson?”

“Of course I’m Carson!”

“Of course you are. The same Carson who pulled my strings so adroitly back on the goddamn Moon. The same Carson who’s had the opportunity for endless off-the-record bullshit. The same Carson who’s got all the higher-ups eating out of his goddamn hand.”

“If they really were, you think I’d have to put up with this shit?”

“You think I can’t see what’s going on here, Carson? You think I haven’t figured out your little secret?”

“My little secret?

“About which I have a theory.”

“What’s your theory?”

“That I’m going to reach this target first.”

The voice cuts out. The Operative disconnects.

“Sounds like that didn’t go so well,” says Sarmax.

“Why are you pointing that pulse-rifle at me?”

“Like you can’t guess,” says Sarmax. He keeps the weapon trained on the Operative—primes it. There’s a low humming noise.

“This just gets better and better,” says the Operative.

“Shut up,” says Sarmax. “Here’s what’s going to happen.”

• • •

What do you mean, witch?”

“Knew you were gonna ask me that. I’ve got no fucking idea. And neither does anyone else down here.”

“Well, what else are they fucking saying?”

“Nothing coherent. Just that it’s not just the Rain we’re after. That we’re also gunning for some kind of Rain witch or something. They’ve also used the word queen. And some of them are saying it’s not Rain at all, that there’s something else on the loose.”

“Maybe one of those Rain-type creatures we keep hearing about.”

“The cool kids don’t talk to me, Spencer. What have you heard?”

“Apparently the Praetorians tried to copy some of the Rain’s tech. Which the Rain then tried to steal right back. There was a rumor some kind of robot was on that spaceplane that—”

“The one that deep-sixed in Hong Kong four days back?”

“Yeah. And I heard that some kind of supercomputer ended up on the Moon, but it was autonomous, so that—”

“God only knows what the fucking truth in all of this is,” mutters Linehan. “That’s probably what they want: to keep us guessing. We gotta go back to basics, man. Because we’re not the only gang of assholes that’s camped out on the Platform tonight.”

“You mean the Rain?”

“Never mind the fucking Rain. Of course they’re in this somehow. I’m talking about the other lot that’s somehow managed to get themselves dealt into this lousy game.”

“Oh yeah,” says Spencer, “those.”

• • •

Haskell’s leaving the equator behind. She’s changed it up again, too, partially out of respect for those strange cameras, but mostly she’s just running on intuition. She feels the scratches on her skin flaring as though fire’s dripping over them. She feels those symbols turning within her brain. She’s dropped through additional layers of infrastructure and is almost at the outer layer of cylinder-skin while she leaves the equator behind. Gravity’s now in excess of normal. Walls are surging past her. She’s left the domain of maglev behind. She’s in what’s essentially a giant conveyor belt. One that’s designed to haul exactly one thing.

Ice. Haskell has melted partially through the chunk upon which she’s riding, and let that ice refreeze over her armor, making her that much harder to spot, especially given how much of the cylinder’s infrastructure is dedicated to the processing of water. Haskell feels the pressure build around her. Everything’s coming down to this, a woman become bullet about to crash through to the world beyond the South Pole. The howling of her sixth sense has reached fever-pitch. Her skin’s burning like a sun’s coming to life within it.

Strands of light whip past the roofless two-person railcar as it shoots through the tunnel. The man who’s driving is standing up front. The other man’s sitting at the back. He keeps his pulse-rifle pointed at the driver.

“So,” says Sarmax, “now that we’ve got some speed, let’s talk.”

“About fucking time.”

“We’ve got a real problem.”

“Lynx has overdosed again.”

“It didn’t sound that simple. One of you is being fucked with, and neither you nor I is in a position to determine who’s the lucky guy.”

“Which is why you’re pointing that gun at me.”

“It seems like the prudent option,” replies Sarmax.

“Does that mean you have a plan?”

“It means I’m still thinking of one.”

“If you shoot me you won’t have a hope of finding the target.”

“Your armor’s what’s tracking the target, Carson. Not you.”

The Operative shrugs, shifts slightly left as the tunnel undergoes a slight bend. He’s providing Sarmax with the real-time feed from his tracking—factoring out what he’s decided are decoys. Sarmax has made it clear he’ll shoot if that stops. The Operative’s tempted to hit the brakes way too hard. But he knows that’s the oldest trick in the book—and that there’d still be an opportunity for Sarmax to get off a shot, with a weapon that—when it comes to survivability at point-blank range—may as well be a heavy laser cannon.

“You’re not that dumb, Leo. It’s my interface with the armor that’s doing the tracking.”

“And that possibility is why I haven’t put one through you yet.”

“It’s a possibility you’re going to have to get used to.”

“Until we reach the target.”

“You’re really putting pressure on me to make a move in the meantime.”

“Go for it,” says Sarmax. “You’ll die before you can even turn around.”

“Have to admit you have the advantage.”

“The Rain have the advantage, Carson.”

“To which I can only agree.”

“They’re totally inside us.”

“There’s still the chance to beat them yet.”

“Sure there is. And it starts with me killing you and Lynx.”

“You mean to be sure.”

“Sure. Shit man, what would you do?”

“Exactly that—if I was sure I wasn’t being fucked with myself.”

“I’ll take my chances,” says Sarmax.

“Not that it matters,” mutters the Operative. “Lynx will still be way ahead of us, even with our taking this train.”

“So we make up for lost ground with a new route,” says Sarmax. Coordinates light up on the map within the Operative’s head.

“That dotted line means it’s still under construction.”

“But near completion,” replies Sarmax.

“Even you aren’t that insane.”

“Twenty seconds, Carson. You make that turn or I’ll blast you into the next world.”

“The one where your Indigo is waiting?”

Sarmax doesn’t reply.

“You killed your girl,” says the Operative. “That’s okay. She was Rain. She had it coming. But now you’ve got a death-wish and you want to nail us all to your fucking ferry.”

“Who are you, Sigmund fucking Freud? Ten seconds.”

“You’ve gone crazy.”

“I’m the only one who’s definitely sane.”

“Which won’t matter if this railcar bites it.”

“Carson, I’ve got to be the one who makes the decision about the target. I can’t trust you or Lynx to do it. Two seconds.”

“I see it,” says the Operative—and with that he sends the car hurtling down a much narrower tunnel. There’s only one other rail besides theirs. But then that other rail cuts out.

“Faster,” says Sarmax.

“Can’t,” says the Operative. “Not without fucking with the zone to get this bitch beyond capacity.”

“Fuck that,” says Sarmax, “zone’s a party everybody’s gate-crashed.”

Gravity increases. The walls start to flicker on either side.

“Hello,” says the Operative.

“Jesus,” says Sarmax. “Is that what I think it is?”

It is. It’s space. They speed out of the tunnel and into the construction area. There’s nothing below their rail save vacuum. Scaffolding’s all around. The completed hull of the cylinder stretches right above them like some impossibly massive ceiling, sloping down to where their rail enters still another tunnel …

“This rail’s really starting to vibrate,” says Sarmax.

“That’s because it’s about as stable as you are,” says the Operative—and ducks his head as they rush into the tunnel. It’s narrow. There’s barely enough room for this single rail.

“Sure wish we had a better map,” says Sarmax.

“We’re through,” says the Operative.

And now gravity’s lessening slightly as they race out into a broader tunnel. But even as they do, something unfolds within the Operative’s head. He stares at the pattern that’s revealed. He traces all the implications.

And then suddenly he gets it.

“Leo.”

“Yeah?”

“I just woke up to what’s so critical about this target.”

“So talk fast.”

The fucking Eurasians,” says Linehan. “They’re here too.”

“Is that what the rumor mill’s saying?”

“That’s what the officers are saying! What the hell’s going on?”

“Sounds like you already know it.”

“You were going to tell me, right?”

“I only just found out myself,” says Spencer.

And it’s all he can do to keep up. To say this operation’s need-to-know is an understatement. But the data overlays now lighting up across the bridge are nothing if not precise. On the opposite side of the Platform’s orbit are eight Eurasian ships, spread out the same way the American ships are, able to support each other and cover the Platform simultaneously.

“They’re with us,” says Spencer. “Not against.”

“You sure about that?”

“Do I sound like I’m sure of fucking anything? I’m just saying what they’re telling us up here.”

“Down here, too. This is a joint operation.”

“Aimed at Autumn Rain.”

“Or the Euro Magnates,” says Linehan.

“Who may be the same thing by now.”

“Who may have always been.”

“You really think they’ve been pulling the Rain’s strings?”

“I think you’ve got it backward, Spencer. What’s the story with that chase you’re monitoring?”

“Getting weirder by the minute.”

Ice and tunnels and speed and it’s all falling short. They’ve got her number, suddenly springing to life, sweeping past her decoys, closing from both sides. Haskell shunts her ice-chunk off the main belt, sends it racing down an ancillary belt as she tries to figure out how the hell they’re tracking her. And while she’s at it, she’s trying to hack them directly.

But she’s unable to. She can’t seem to come to grips with them and has no idea why. It’s almost as though they’re not actually there, as though she’s clutching at illusion. It’s like they’re ghosts.

Which makes no sense. She’s the ghost. The one who slips through perimeters like a phantom. But not this time—she’s bringing all her force to bear upon the problem and she’s still coming up short.

Leaving only one possible answer. Her pursuers have found a back door to her. One that she needs to neutralize fast. But first she needs to find it. She starts racing through the code of her own brain even as her mind races through the Platform’s zone. She’s sending the ice she’s in forward through a tube whose heated walls start to liquefy what’s encasing her, causing water to pour across her visor. She’s caught up in that surge now, charging out beyond the frontiers of her own brain, closing in on the door that’s out there in that limbo—but everywhere she turns is dark. She sees exactly what she’s going to have to do if she can’t find the route they’ve found to her. Bailing out of zone is an act of desperation, but her pursuers are closing in. Before she pulls the plug, she tries one more thing—amplifies her decoys, sends them hurtling out in new directions.

But one of them isn’t listening.

She sends more commands. It’s not responding. It’s just circling in toward her, on a course to intercept both her and her pursuers, only a couple of klicks distant now. She stares at it. Realization hits her like a meteor smashing into a planet.

Fuck,” says the Operative, “lost it.”

“What the hell do you mean you lost it?”

“I mean I fucking lost the goddamn signal!”

“How the fuck did you manage to do that?” asks Sarmax. He’s no longer pointing his gun at the Operative. But he looks like he wouldn’t mind shooting him anyway. “Maybe our equipment fucked up.”

“Maybe you fucked up,” says Sarmax.

“What’s fucked up is this whole fucking scene.”

“No shit.”

The Operative shakes his head. He’s starting to feel like a pinball getting flung around inside a machine. He and Sarmax are still roaring through the bowels of the cylinder, still watching wall shoot past them. Still trying to make sense of the data that’s streaming through their skulls.

“It dropped off the zone,” says the Operative.

“That’s your fucking excuse?”

“That’s my fucking explanation.”

And it’ll have to do. Because the Operative can’t think of any others. Not without taking apart his armor and trying to see what makes that zone interface tick. Besides, that interface couldn’t really be malfunctioning. Because now it’s detecting something else, back in the area they started in. It’s very faint, and it quickly disappears. But for a moment there it was unmistakable. The Operative mentions this to Sarmax.

“What?”

“You heard me,” says the Operative.

“Where?”

“Closing.”

“So what are you waiting for?”

It’s off the zone,” says Spencer.

“The target?”

“The hunters, too.”

“Because something’s hunting them.”

“Starting to look that way.”

“More than just starting,” says Linehan. “Textbook setup, man. We’re the reserves. Out in space. We’re flying cover while our forward operatives—whoever the fuck they are—cover the area through which we know hostiles have to pass.”

“You’ve got me, Linehan. How do you know hostiles have to enter the cylinder?”

“I don’t. Can you get me a readout of the shipping activity across the whole Platform across the last four days?”

“Define shipping activity” says Spencer.

“Times and locations on the Platform at which ships have landed or departed. Normalized against historical activity across the last three months.”

“Easy enough.” Spencer pulls it up. “Here.” But as he’s sending the file over to Linehan he’s taking a look himself.

And drawing some quick conclusions.

“Fuck,” he says.

“Fasten your seat belts,” says Linehan.

Greenery’s everywhere. Haskell’s standing on the stairs one level above the floor of a much larger chamber. She can barely discern its contours. A translucent roof stops just short of the cylinder’s hollow interior above her. Light’s dribbling dimly through. Greenhouse structures are stacked along its edges. The floor’s partitioned into giant squares, given over to different types of crops.

Haskell leaps from the stairs, dropping into the plants beneath her. The tall grasses close in over her head. She brushes through them, finds the closest irrigation channel, and starts running along it in a crouch.

Which is when someone steps from the grass farther up ahead.

Someone in a suit of armor that’s completely beaten her own suit’s camo. A nasty-looking minigun’s mounted on its shoulder. The gun’s barrel swivels toward her, even as she springs back onto the zone and finds that whoever’s in the armor has isolated himself from all nets—presumably to deal with the likes of her. She stares into that barrel, and it’s as though it’s already fired. As though she’s already gone.

But she’s not. She’s still frozen in that moment, still watching existence freeze about her. The suit holds up a hand, gestures at the side of its helmet. As though it wants to talk. She obliges, activating a tightbeam channel, and a voice crackles in her head.

The habbed asteroids,” says Spencer.

“The Aeries. Yeah.”

“Nothing’s landed there since this whole thing started.”

“And nothing’s going to either. Like I said, targets have to pass through the cylinder.”

“But why would targets even come to the Platform in the first place?”

“It’s not like either of us is a stranger to this type of drill, Spencer. There are only two ways to bag a target, right? Either you go get it or—”

“You make it come to you.”

“Yeah.”

“So what’s the bait?”

“I’ll take a wild guess: something impossible to resist.”

Going somewhere?” the voice says.

Haskell doesn’t reply. Time spirals slowly sideways. Cosmic background static pours through her. She feels herself drowning in it. She feels herself rising past it. She hears the voice continue.

“Take off your helmet. I want to see you.”

Her body’s so full of adrenaline she can barely move her hands from where she’s got them above her head. But she does: lowers those hands against infinite resistance, unclasps the helmet’s seals, lifts the helmet off, tosses it aside. The suited figure moves forward with all the purpose of a predatory insect—so close now she can see ebony skin through the visor. She can even see what looks like silver hair.

But she can also see that gun—adjusting minutely on its axis as it aims directly between her eyes.

Flame and motion in the windows of the bridge: two of the other Praetorian ships are firing their motors. They’re dropping out of orbit, toward the cylinder.

“They’re sending a couple of ships in,” says Spencer.

“Drop ships?” asks Linehan.

“No, entire fucking ships. Decked out as medium-grade freighters, American, same as this one. Guess the rest of us are providing cover. Along with whatever they’ve got mounted on the Helios power station.”

“That Helios is quite a structure. Ten klicks of lasers and microwave—”

“I’ll say. Talk about directed-energy capability—”

“How soon till the ships hit the Platform?”

“About a minute.”

“Which end are they heading toward?”

“North Pole. The spaceport end. You called it.”

“Damn right I did,” says Linehan.

“So what the fuck’s in those asteroids? The Euro Magnates?”

“I think they’ve been taken off the board, Spencer. I think the thing that’s in that cylinder’s Aerie is the same thing that’s directing this whole operation.”

“While simultaneously doing everything it can to convince its prey that it’s ripe for the taking?”

“I see you see where I’m going with this.”

You’re a woman,” says the man within the suit.

“And you’re Stefan Lynx.” A momentary pause. “What the hell makes you say that?”

“I’ve seen your file. I recognize your face. You dye your hair silver. You’re not that hard to pick out of a crowd.”

“You’ve hacked through to the heart of our systems.”

“I’d hardly say your file is at the heart of the Praetorian systems, Stefan.”

“Shut up,” he snaps. “All your zone tricks can’t save you now. Because I’m the one who’s got the gun—don’t move your hands. Keep them right where they are.”

“I’m not moving.”

“Good.”

“What do you want?”

“To gaze upon the face of Rain before I obliterate your face.”

“I’m here to fight the Rain, Stefan.”

“You are the Rain, bitch.”

“You’d better check your orders. Your Throne wouldn’t want me killed. Your Throne would have ordered me taken alive. And I can assure you right now he’d be pretty fucking livid if—”

“Shut up!” She stops talking. “Don’t try to twist my mind!” But she realizes there’s some doubt in his head. That he’s trying to psyche himself up to kill her.

Or else he’s just savoring the moment.

“Start begging for your life.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Rain whore. Let’s see you fucking plead.”

“You’ll kill me anyway,” she says.

Near-instantaneous swivel: the gun fires. A shot streaks past her head. “Not good enough,” he says.

“Strom Carson,” she says. “Where is he?”

“Who?”

“The leader of your triad.”

“Say that name again,” he says.

“He’s got different orders, doesn’t he?”

“What the fuck makes you say that?”

“Your team’s been fucked with, Stefan. Where’s Carson?”

And for a moment she thinks she’s gone too far. Lynx takes aim at her chest—and then suddenly leaps toward her, grabs her by the neck as he pulls out a pistol, and shoves it up against her temple. And now he’s switched to audio piped from his suit’s speakers. “He’s right behind you. Come out asshole! Right fucking now!”

She’s staring in the same direction he is, across the fields at the nearest wall. She still can’t see it. But then they switch off their camo and she does: two figures in two doorways. One of them is advancing. The other is staying put. Haskell notices that they’ve got their camo patterns adjusted so that they’re only visible along the line of vision in which she and Lynx are standing. The figure that’s still standing in a doorway is covering the whole area with a pulse-rifle. The other figure’s still closing.

“That’s far enough,” says Lynx.

“Deactivate your weapons.”

Lynx laughs. “I got a better idea, Carson. You deactivate yours. Before I do your Rain girlfriend.”

“That’s not the Rain. That’s the Manilishi. Which belongs to the president.”

“Don’t think you can make up words and impress me, Carson. She’s Rain. She’s pulling your strings.”

“No,” snarls the third man—whom Haskell figures to be Leo Sarmax. “The Rain’s pulling yours.”

“Shut up, Leo,” says Lynx. “You don’t know shit.”

“None of you do!” screams Haskell. Lynx’s arm tightens around her, but she keeps talking anyway. “We don’t have time for this! The Rain are closing on us even now!”

“Don’t think I don’t know that,” says Carson.

This could kick off at any moment,” says Spencer. “It may already have,” says Linehan. “Are you armed?”

“Just sidearms. Nothing as fancy as you’ve got.”

“If the shit hits the fan on this ship—”

“It’s more likely to hit it down there.”

“It’s definitely about to fucking hit it down there. The Rain are in that cylinder for sure. They’re betting they can beat whatever trap’s been set.”

“And reach the asteroid in which the Throne’s sitting.”

“The Aerie where he’s waiting for them. Daring them to come and fucking get him.”

“It’s a magnet,” says Linehan. “A fucking magnet.”

“Look at the size of those Aeries.” Spencer transmits the dimensions of the rock that’s attached to the cylinder in which the action’s going down, lighting up the sphere in 3-D false-color. “The Praetorian Core comprises an entire division. Every last one of them could be packed in there with him, with this fleet that we’re a part of just waiting to swoop down at the first sign of trouble—”

“And the East’s ships, too.”

“Who’ve got that other cylinder covered.”

“But if he’s involved then that means the Eurasian leadership—”

“It might,” says Spencer.

“Might? It must.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s no way he would allow Eurasian troops to be a part of this under any other set of conditions.”

“Double or nothing?”

“Anything you want to bet, Spencer. It’s everything. It’s the only way any of this makes any sense. He’s in one of the Aeries; the Eurasian leadership’s in the other. Along with their own Praetorian equivalents.”

“Maybe.”

“Jesus man, think about it. Both sides know Autumn Rain has been playing them off each other. That they’ve gone to ground within the East’s zone to escape ours, and vice versa. The leaderships intend to squeeze the Rain between them, and if they can achieve enough integration between the two executive nodes—”

“They’d stand a good chance of bagging Rain,” says Spencer.

“Which means the Rain has to strike them first.”

“At a place of the leaderships’ own choosing.”

“That place being here.”

“And here we are right in the middle.”

You have to take me to the Throne,” says Haskell.

“Yeah,” says Lynx, “fucking right.”

“Lynx,” says Carson, “this is your last chance—” but as he says this, a tiny hatch in Sarmax’s knee opens and fires two quick shots. Haskell feels heat on her face as the blast sears past her, feels debris pepper her suit as the barrel of Lynx’s minigun disintegrates, along with his pistol—and his hand. He’s knocked sprawling on the ground screaming as Carson and Sarmax fire their suit-thrusters. In an instant, Carson’s crashing into Haskell, knocking the wind from her, shielding her with his body.

For a moment all’s still. Haskell clears her throat.

“Mind if I get up?” she asks.

Carson says nothing—just stands up and hauls her to her feet. Lynx is sitting on the ground, cradling his arm. His visor’s up. Sarmax has landed halfway between her and the door, covering Lynx with his pulse-rifle—covering the rest of the ag-complex, too. She sees Carson shake his head within his suit, realizes that Sarmax was probably asking Carson on a private channel if he should finish Lynx off. But apparently Carson has declined. Though it seems he’s not done yet.

“Lynx,” he says aloud. “You’re under arrest.”

“Just shoot me now,” mutters Lynx.

“I would shoot you now, you stupid fuck, except for the fact that you thought you were serving the Throne. But believe me, if you had killed her, this would have been your grave.”

“And if you try broadcasting anything, it still might,” says Sarmax. “How’s your arm?”

“Cauterized,” says Lynx. “Suit sealed. Fucking bas—”

“Shut up,” says Carson. “Claire Haskell: we’re Praetorian special ops. We’re here to protect you. Get your helmet back on. We have to get—”

“Save the speech,” says Haskell. “If you’re Praetorian, take me to the Throne. Fucking now.”

“Actually” says Carson, “I have orders not to.”

Haskell stares. Lynx laughs.

“Orders from the Rain, huh?” he says.

“Orders from the Throne,” replies Carson.

“I guess I can’t blame him,” says Haskell.

“You really can’t,” says Carson. “Let’s move.”

• • •

We’re caught up in the fucking day of judgement.”

“Calm down,” says Spencer.

“I am calm.”

“You probably shouldn’t be.”

“It all depends on how far the Rain have infiltrated. Whether they’ve managed to get into the Aerie.”

“Whether the Throne has been successful in confining any infiltration to the cylinder.”

“The Rain might just nuke that asteroid.”

“And that asteroid could probably take it. Besides, it’s not enough to just obliterate the Throne. The executive node switches in that eventuality.”

“How the fuck do you know that?” asks Linehan.

“I’ve no idea.”

“That makes me nervous.”

“Yeah,” says Spencer. “Me, too.”

“You could be the Rain.”

“We both might be.”

“Christ, this is fucked up,” says Linehan.

“I noticed.”

“So what else do you know about the executive node?”

“That it’s transferred to the president’s successor in the event of his physical destruction.”

“And who’s the successor?”

“I’d guess Montrose.”

“I’d guess that too. And I’m thinking she’s nowhere near here.”

“Not much is.”

“Which is why the Throne picked this place,” says Linehan. “L3’s out of sight of the Moon and all the infrastructure around it. Only about twenty percent of our strategic weaponry has the angle and range, and—”

“Right. More than enough backup to bail the president out of whatever goes down here at the same time minimizing the assets he has to keep track of. This dump’s perfect.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Best among some shit options?”

“The logic’s clear enough,” says Linehan. “The two leaderships have to be in direct contact. But they had to pick neutral territory since neither leadership is about to send its executive node into the other’s terrain. And it has to be in space, because this way they can control every last approach. And then, when the Rain moves in, they can hit them in that cylinder from all sides, with overwhelming force.”

And emerge and declare that they’ve destroyed the Rain and forged a new treaty while they were at it—a second Zurich to divide the world anew.” Spencer shakes his head. “They can absorb what’s left of the neutrals and then get on with whatever the fuck they like.”

But now something’s happening on that nearer asteroid. Nothing that’s visible physically. In space the Aerie remains the same as it’s been this whole time: partially occluded by that cylinder, partially glinting in the sun, a metal-studded rock that keeps its own counsel.

In the zone, though, it’s a different story. Something’s happening on the asteroid’s firewall. On the part of the sphere that’s blocked by the cylinder.

“On the rock,” says Spencer.

“Yeah?”

“A door’s opening.”

They’re going lights out and hell for leather. No zone presence now, and they’re hoping nothing can see them on board the special train of the Euro Magnates. They’ve traveled three levels up—into a corridor that isn’t supposed to exist—through a door and into the transit-tube where the train was sitting. No sooner were they aboard than it took off at full speed—back toward the city-end of the cylinder. Sarmax is keeping an eye on Lynx, whose armor’s sensors and weaponry have been deactivated. The Operative’s keeping an eye on Haskell. Both men keep an eye on everything else as well. As far as they know, this train’s empty. But there are nine other cars beside theirs. And they’re not about to make any assumptions.

“So where exactly are we going?” asks Haskell.

The basements of New London,” replies Carson.

“For the greater glory of the Rain,” says Lynx. “Shut up,” snarls Sarmax, but Lynx just laughs. And keeps on talking. “Can’t you think for yourself, Leo? Don’t you see what’s happening? Carson and this—this thing here—have got this all worked out. We’re heading straight into the hands of Rain.”

“I don’t think so,” says Sarmax.

“How do you fucking know?”

“Enough with the mind games,” snaps Carson. “The Rain could be on us any moment. Here’s how it’s going to work. In about ten seconds, this train is going to stop. When it does, Lynx is on point. Leo’s next. Then the Manil—I mean Claire. I’ll be covering her and guarding the rear. Got it?”

“So that’s why I’m still alive,” says Lynx. Another target.”

“Basically,” says Sarmax.

“You must be enjoying this, Leo.”

“Am I that transparent?”

The train slides to a halt. The doors open—but Sarmax is already shoving Lynx through them, stumbling onto a narrow platform. Everybody follows. There aren’t many ways out of here. Just a stairwell and an—

“Elevator,” says Carson.

They press inside. It’s a tight fit. Haskell feels Carson’s suit press against hers. She feels as though she’s in a dream. It’s like she’s seen all this before—she feels the floor press up beneath her, level after level, they flick upward into the rafters of the Euro city. Gravity starts to subside. When they finally stop, there’s not much of it left.

“Ready?” says Carson.

“Let’s do it,” says Sarmax.

They hit their suits’ thrusters as the door opens, heading out into an empty corridor, then through what seems to be some kind of antechamber. Beyond it is a door so thick it looks like it was pried out of some bank vault.

“You got the key?” asks Haskell.

“I’d better,” replies Carson.

He triggers the necessary codes. The massive door starts to swing open. As the door gets past forty-five degrees open, Sarmax shoves Lynx forward, through that doorway and to the left, while he hits his own thrusters and heads to the right. Carson and Haskell wait.

But only for a moment.

“Clear,” shouts Sarmax.

Carson gestures at Haskell. She shoves off the floor, floats into the room alongside him as the door swings shut behind them.

“Not too far,” he says. She fires compressed air, stops—looks around to see that the room’s on two levels. She and Carson and Lynx are on the deck that constitutes the outer level, a circle around the sunken inner one, where Sarmax hovers, scanning surfaces. The walls curve between two windows situated opposite each other, each one cutting across the outer level. Space flickers in one of those windows—lights of ships and stars set against an all-consuming black.

The other window shows the interior of the cylinder. The lights of twilit city stretch away on all sides, descending to three valleys that look like the sides of some vast equilateral triangle whose segments have been thrust apart. One of the gaps between two of the valleys shows a sun on the point of setting. The other gaps contain largely darkened mirrors. Night’s almost fallen on the land.

“It’s almost here,” says Haskell.

“What?” asks Carson.

He looks at her, and she knows she can’t explain. How could she? Everything’s turned around her. She was going south and now she’s been slung back north, back into the heart of the city. Sixth-sense pivots within her head; the maps upon her skin take on new meaning. All this time she thought she was looking out through the lens of intuition and all the while it was looking in at her. Everything was leading here. She tries to speak, muttering something about how the view’s not cheap.

“It wasn’t money that bought it for us,” says Carson. He floats near the door, closer now to Lynx than to Haskell. He nods in the direction of Sarmax—more one-on-one coordination, Haskell presumes. Sarmax makes a return gesture.

“Shouldn’t I get away from these windows?” she asks.

“They’re one-way,” says Carson.

“So now we wait for your masters?” asks Lynx.

“Yours too,” says Carson. “Have a seat.”

He shoves Lynx into one of the chairs that ring the outer level of the room. Lynx sits there, stares at what’s left of his wrist. Haskell feels his amputation as though it’s her own. She doesn’t know why. But he has the demeanor of someone who owned the universe only to lose it. She senses much history among these three men. History it seems the files only hint at.

“It embarrasses me for you to see us like this,” says Carson, as though he’s read her mind.

“Why?”

“We’ve seen better days.”

“It gets better than this?”

He laughs. She realizes that he doesn’t do that often. That he has no idea what to make of her. Then suddenly his head snaps to regard an instrument panel next to the door. He shouts down to Sarmax that they’ve got company. Sarmax hits his thrusters, vaults up to the outer platform.

“Approaching the door?” asks Carson.

“Yeah. Camera’s out, of course.”

“Who took it out?” asks Haskell.

“We did,” says Sarmax.

“We hope,” says Carson. “All we’ve got is heat and motion coming toward that door.”

But Haskell can sense far more than that. This room she’s never seen before is aglow in every vision. She can see all too clearly the logic that led to its selection: any team that bagged her or Rain would come here without any footprints on the zone, on an unmonitored route that’s not on any chart. This is the ideal point for rendezvous, with escape routes in both directions. The fleet’s outside. The interior’s covered by snipers. If whoever’s outside the door isn’t who they’re supposed to be …

“So which is it going to be?” she asks.

“For me, space was always the place.” He gestures. They fire their suits’ thrusters, move toward the window facing out into vacuum. Sarmax remains where he is, covering Lynx and the doorway. Carson tosses something onto that window, then pulls Haskell back from it.

“They’ve got the right access codes so far,” says Carson. He grasps one of her arms, turning her around so that both of them are facing the door. “I’ve placed a charge on the window. Explosive decompression will give us a good start in the vacuum. You’ll have to excuse me, but I don’t intend to let go of you.”

“It’s what you’re paid for,” she says.

The door starts to open.

• • •

The guns on this ship are tracking on something,” says Spencer. “Where?” says Linehan.

“Looks like they’re reorientating some of the KE gatlings onto the New London spaceport,” says Spencer. Right where the two Praetorian ships just landed—he stares at the surrounding topography, but it looks normal enough. Just more ships lining up for approach and pushing back from the Platform. He shifts his focus back to the far end—

“We might be about to see some shit,” says Linehan. “If the Throne’s starting to feed reinforcements into the cylinder from his Aerie—”

“He’s not,” says Spencer.

“You seem really sure of that.”

“C’mon, man. Those ships that just landed on the cylinder’s other end, at New London—they were the reinforcements. Along with the rest of us still out here. The Throne needs a better reason than that to open up a door in his citadel.”

“So then they took something inside the asteroid—”

“No way.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I’m sure of nothing. But logic seems to preclude it.”

“Go on,” says Linehan.

“The operatives we were tracking in the cylinder went lights out. So did the target. Here’s my hypothesis: they got whatever they were chasing. They either captured it or they killed it. Now they need to do something with it.”

“If they killed it, what the fuck else can they do to it?”

“Inspect it. Dissect it. Use its codes to triangulate on the live ones. Rain corpses don’t come cheap.”

“You’re not making any sense.”

“I’m just speculating here, Linehan. It’s all I can do. But I’m wondering whether that thing’s now driving the timing of the whole operation. We got put on alert when it got detected. And the tension’s still getting cranked. Hostiles are still out there.”

“Where are you going with this?”

“To the logical place one ends up if one assumes that this thing or its carcass can be used against the rest of the Rain. Whether or not it’s some Rain witch—whether or not that’s all bullshit—the point is that if it’s something the Throne needs—what happens then?”

“He brings it inside the Aerie—oh. No.”

“No,” says Spencer. “The Throne can’t bring it inside.”

“Because it could be trojan.”

“Yeah. Exactly. On the zone or physically—doesn’t matter. The whole point might be to use this to get to him.”

“Which puts him in a tight box.”

“Yeah,” says Spencer.

“Because he can’t go to it either.”

“No way. If he leaves that asteroid, he forfeits his whole fucking strategy.”

“So what does he do?” asks Linehan.

“Sends something in his place.”

“Got something in mind?”

“All depends on how important this asset they’ve bagged is.”

“And if it’s critically important—”

“—then the Throne has to send in something he trusts totally.”

Static. Then: “I didn’t realize there was such a thing.”

“That’s all there is,” says Spencer. “A single thing.”

The far edge of the door passes the near the edge of the wall.

“Stop right there,” yells Sarmax, his voice blasting through the room on amplification.

The door stops moving.

“Stand by to receive primary code,” says an amplified voice on the door’s far side.

“Standing by” says Sarmax. She realizes he’s beaming the code to Carson. Who nods.

“Get in here,” yells Sarmax.

The door gets moving again. Suited figures start to sail into the room. Haskell notices that Carson continues to wait where he is, one hand on her arm, his back to the window, poised to blow that window and blast them both into space. Though once he sees their uniforms he relaxes almost imperceptibly.

And once he sees how many of them there are, he relaxes visibly—but still at the ready, facing the first of the suited figures, who’s now almost reached him.

That figure wears Praetorian colors. She wonders at that but decides that somebody probably figures that if these troops see combat, it no longer matters what makes the news. But the colors they wear aren’t the usual Praetorian ones the news-channels feature: slashes of dark blue set against a darker grey. The ones she’s looking at have replaced that blue with an almost reddish purple. But everything else about these suits—the shape of the helmets, the weapons configurations sported by the armor, the way in which insignia are displayed, all of it—is classic Praetorian. Haskell realizes that she’s looking at something she’s never seen—the uniform of the Praetorian Core. And now the soldier in front of her is saluting Carson.

“Sir,” he says.

Carson returns the salute. “What’s the situation, Lieutenant?”

“Under control, sir.”

“And his ETA?”

“Within the minute, sir. Via max-speed maglev.”

“See this lady?” says Carson.

“Yes, sir,” says the lieutenant.

“Her life is more important than yours. You’ll die for her without hesitation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Inform your soldiers of this. Prepare this room’s defenses.”

“Sir.”

“Dismissed.”

The lieutenant turns. Carson lets go of Haskell. She doesn’t move though—just glances over to where Lynx is being neural-locked by two soldiers. His helmet’s off. His back’s to her. She notices Sarmax drifting over to where she and Carson are.

How’s Lynx taking it?” asks the Operative on the one-on-one. “How do you think?” replies Sarmax.

“The Rain almost fucked us.”

“You really think they got to him?”

“No question.”

“So now we space him?”

“Probably. But for now they’ve taken him to where the marines from the ships are setting up the outer perimeter.”

“Those guys have brought in some heavy equipment, huh?”

“Nothing that doesn’t suit the occasion. Lynx really got strapped to the railroad tracks this time.”

“With the Hand driving the shit-train to end all shit-trains.”

“And that guy breaks for nothing.”

Sarmax looks amused. “If you’re pressed for conversation when he gets here, you might consider asking him to go easy on Lynx.”

“Are you nuts?”

“It’d look good—you know, plead his case, show some concern and all that.”

“Tell you what, man, why don’t you start shooting into the ceiling or something just so it’s totally obvious to everybody that I have no ability to lead a fucking team whatsoever.”

“Maybe they’ll even give me back the job,” says Sarmax.

“Like you’d want it.”

“I’m starting to think I might.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What are you guys talking about?” asks Haskell.

They look at her.

“She’s quick,” says Sarmax.

“She is,” says Carson. “We were just talking about the situation.”

“Which is?”

“Precarious.”

What do you know about him?” asks Linehan. “Just the usual stuff you hear around the campfire,” says Spencer. “The Hand’s second only to the president in the Praetorian hierarchy—”

“And responsible for one thing.”

“The security of the Throne.”

“Meaning the Throne’s taking one hell of a risk if he’s really sending him in.”

Spencer mulls this over—and then sees the captain suddenly signal to the gunnery officers on the left of the bridge. He watches numbers race one another across his screens as the ship’s batteries start responding.

“Hey,” he says. “They’re priming the DE cannon.”

“Which ones?”

“That’d be all of them.”

• • •

The Praetorians have set up heavy weapons pointed at both windows—two-person gatlings that take about fifteen seconds to configure—and are also boring holes in the ceiling and floor, shoving wires through them to communicate via direct transmission with their brethren who apparently have occupied the adjacent floors. Haskell’s assuming it’s all still off the zone—that it’s all been worked out in advance. She floats near the inner deck with Carson and Sarmax hovering nearby. She counts at least thirty soldiers. She wonders how many are in the structure around her—wonders if the millions who dwell in the city all around have any idea what’s taking place within their midst.

More Praetorians enter the room. They’re bunched tightly around a single figure who wears the same uniform as they do—but who now separates from them, rockets in toward her and Carson and Sarmax accompanied only by two other Praetorians. Haskell notices that the approaching suit has no rank. It seems like he’s moving toward her over some infinite distance; like she’s seen him so many times before. Carson and Sarmax come to attention as the man brakes in front of them.

“Sir,” says Carson.

“At ease,” says the man.

“This is the woman, sir,” says the Operative.

“Good,” says the man. The face behind his visor is much older than she was expecting. His hair’s as grey as his eyes. “Claire, my name’s Huselid.”

“The Throne’s own Hand.”

“I need you to remove your helmet.”

She complies wordlessly. Brown hair spills out as she breathes in the air around her. The Praetorians standing to either side of Huselid begin pulling material out of their suits, begin to erect what looks for all the world like a tent around them. Walls quickly cut them off. What seemed to be fabric at first is now hardening into something that’s more like plastic.

They’re in a room within a room. She feels everything closing in around her. She feels the universe billowing out beyond her. Huselid doesn’t take his eyes off her.

“Claire, there are a couple of scans we have to run. I need you to remove your suit.”

“Don’t you fucking get it?” she says, but though it sounds like protest it’s really not. It’s more like ritual. “There’s no time. They might hit us at any moment.”

“Precisely why you need to hurry.” The Praetorians pull themselves out of the structure, affix its plastic to the larger chamber’s walls. One of them steps back in, stands with her weapons trained on Haskell as Huselid continues: “I apologize, but prudence dictates precautions. Gentlemen, if you’d be so kind.”

Carson and Sarmax salute and leave, pulling the door-flap shut behind them. Haskell shrugs, opens up her suit, steps out, strips off her shirt and pants. She stands there, noticing that Huselid’s noticing the bloody scars wreathed upon her.

“What are those?” he asks.

“Schematics that depict how the Rain might be taking the ground out from under our feet while we sit here chatting.”

“I’m going as fast as I can,” he says—gazes at her, and she realizes he’s scanning on multiple spectrums. She takes him in—soldier of the Throne, playing the hand he’s been dealt. Though apparently he’s still fully capable of multitasking:

“It wouldn’t have worked,” he says.

“What wouldn’t have?”

“Breaking into the Aerie to confront the Throne.”

“Only way to be sure the Rain weren’t listening in. Only way he could be sure I wasn’t Rain.”

“But they were trying to follow you in. You almost fell into their trap.”

“They almost fell into mine. Once I’d combined with the Throne directly, we could have destroyed them at point-blank range.”

“We’ll give you the next best thing.”

“Remote-junction’s too great a risk.”

“It’s the only risk the Throne will take,” he replies.

“Then he’s a fool.”

Huselid says nothing. But his eyes say everything. She doesn’t even know why she’s arguing. She’s just following the script. Because how she gets to the impending moment doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s about to be unleashed. And now a door in the enclosure folds up and two more Praetorians float a small cart into the room. It contains an object: a cube about a meter on each side, covered in a metallic paperlike substance peeling all around its edges. A screen’s attached to one end. What looks like a small radar dish exudes from the other. One of the soldiers takes her clothes and pulls her suit from the enclosure. The other adjusts the dish. Looks at her.

“Hold still,” he says, and points that dish at her. She feels nothing. She counts the seconds, watches herself reflected in the dish’s hazy mirror, watches the scar-maps on her skin distorted by its curves. She feels like she’s on the verge of seeing something new within those patterns. She feels as though she’s on a river drifting toward the roar of falling water….

“Turn around,” says the Praetorian. She does. More seconds pass. “Face me again.” She does. “We need a DNA scan,” he says. “Hold out your hand.” She holds it out. He peels off some of the metal-paper from the cube, touches it to her hand. “Your tongue,” he says. She sticks out her tongue. He repeats the procedure with more of the metal-paper. Huselid takes all of this in without expression.

“Are you finished?” she asks.

“Yes,” he says. Another Praetorian pulls another suit into the room. It’s heavy armor. It’s obviously packed with weapons. “This is your new suit,” says Huselid.

“What’s it do?” she asks.

“What doesn’t it,” he replies.

The Praetorian salutes, leaves. She looks at the armor. Garments hang off the back of it: light pants and shirt. She puts them on, climbs into the suit, hits the ignition. Lights flare out around her. She feels time starting to quicken.

“Now what?” she says.

“Now we do what I was sent for,” Huselid replies. The enclosure suddenly opens up, drapes inward as it reverts back to cloth. A Praetorian holds up one corner. Huselid ducks beneath, gesturing at her to follow. He fires his thrusters, floats down into the basin of the inner room, lands at an alcove set within one side—an alcove cut off from the line-of-sight of both the windows. Wires protrude from its wall, their ends grasped by Praetorians. She scans the alcove, scans those wires, puts her suit through its paces as she does so. It’s working like clockwork. She instinctively moves toward the zone for the rest of the routine checks she’d usually run.

And stops.

And waits. She’s bracing herself for what’s about to happen. She’s resigned to it. She’s just a tool of the future now, even if it wasn’t precisely what she was planning. Because now that the Throne’s calling the shots there’s no way he’s going to let her near him. Not until she’s been tested, via a hidden line rigged across the whole of the cylinder, all the way to the Aerie. And Haskell figures what the hell. She’s ready to take to the zone to merge with the Throne itself—to integrate her capabilities with his and put her sword at his service. Though she swears to God she won’t hand him her mind.

She stops near Huselid. Two other soldiers move in, scan the walls around them. Huselid takes a wire from one of his soldiers, extends it toward her. She feels herself teeter on the brink. He looks straight at her and she struggles to meet his gaze through the contingency pouring in upon her.

“Claire Haskell. President Andrew Harrison asks for your forgiveness for all that you’ve suffered at the hands of his servants. He asks that you work with him now to save our people from the thing that assails us. When that’s done, he’ll grant you anything you wish. Anything at all. He asks that you join with him to triangulate the locations of the Rain hit teams throughout the Earth-Moon system.”

“What about the back door to my own systems?”

“We’ll give you the key.”

“Which the Rain already has.”

“We know the nature of the game we’re playing.”

“Do the Eurasians?”

He pauses. She laughs, but only just. “They really sent their leadership?”

“They really did,” he says. “But we’re talking about two separate zones here. Meaning that the triangulation the Throne’s attempting with what we believe to be the Eurasian executive node—in the other asteroid—won’t yield results for hours. With you, it’ll take a minute to clean out the U.S. zone. Then we can worry about helping the East out.”

“Give me that wire.”

Huselid hands it to her. She looks at the metal, feels everything tilt around her—and then she shoves the wire into the side of her head. She steps inside the zone, and right before her in that endless grid is something that looks like an endless head and its eyes are like windows and its mouth is time itself and it’s the Throne upon the ramparts of the highest firewalls imaginable: the Throne itself blazing light down upon her and then she meets that light and feels herself swept upward, rising above it, feeling it rise above her as she bears the Throne up on wings of intuition and lets the U.S. zone fold in around her. She sees the bulwark of Montrose’s InfoCom flaring off to one side—notices the extent to which it and the Throne have opened to each other—notices, too, that all the strategic weaponry across all the Commands remains accounted for, even in those areas that are slightly darker to the Throne. Much of that terrain’s clustered within Space Command—but now that obscurity’s fading as she applies the pressure: shifts gears, turns wheels, sweeps her gaze across those grids. Nothing’s denied her now. The codes of the Throne slam shut her back doors, augment her own power, carry all before her. The map of the U.S. zone and all its secret corners blazes within her head. The L3 system shines before her. The president has set up the executive node within the Aerie (a crimson orb deep within that asteroid), and configured a portion of the Euro net as a temporary extension of the U.S. zone.

Only it’s no ordinary zone. It’s layered behind the firewalls of the Euro Magnates, mostly latent within the cylinder, but switched on in full defensive architecture within the Aerie—set up to mirror the Eurasian zone that’s been stretched across the farther cylinder and farther rock, looming largely opaque to Haskell, but she suspects that she could penetrate it if she tried. Particularly with the Throne riding shotgun for her. Or is she running shotgun for it? Because she remembers now. Her job. Find the Rain, and let the Praetorians pin them down with snipers while troops emerge from the asteroid and deploy from the disguised warships to finish them. And such forces will be backed up by strategic weaponry set up in layers beyond the Platform itself: the batteries of the warships, the gunnery platforms on the adjacent satellites, and on the periphery of the L3 vicinity, the directed energy projectors rigged upon the ten-kilometer-long Helios Station …

She switches on to the primary sequence, takes in the whole of the U.S. zone, sees all the routes where the Rain’s been gaining access—sees them as though she’s staring at her skin once more. It’s as she figured. It’s as they’ve done before—the Rain have been using the legacy routes: paths from before there was a U.S. zone—back in the days of the global net—tunnels that lead through wires that used to be mainlines so many decades ago, before they fell to disuse and secret things began to prowl them.

Only this time they’ve gone deeper than anyone save she thought possible. She picks up the Rain’s scent at those doors, starts to follow the trails, out of the legacies, into the here and now, far out across Earth and Moon. Some of those paths lead along the directions of the Rain hit teams of four days ago.

Some don’t.

She attains critical mass—fast-forwards through the last three days in an instant. Everything crashes through her head: she sees the Rain and nothing stands between her and them. She sees every square meter of every scrap of territory the United States controls—as well as the locations of every hit team the Rain have within that territory. All of those hit teams look to be the standard triad model that the Rain uses. There are three of them.

All within this half of the Europa Platform.

One’s only a klick off, holed up in a safehouse on the outskirts of New London. New London’s easy. Anything can get in there. Getting past it and out into the rest of the cylinder is the problem.

But the second Rain triad has managed to do just that. It was using the back door within Haskell to move within her zone-wake. That back door’s now shut, but the triad’s still sidling forward, far more cautiously than before. And the odds of it being detected have been growing the closer it draws to the Aerie. Odds that approach near certainty when it reaches the South Pole.

But the third triad’s managed to beat those odds anyway. It’s managed to get inside the Aerie itself. By being in that asteroid all along. By guessing right. By not letting anybody see what Haskell’s now seeing: right after the failure of their attempt to ignite war between the superpowers, the Rain placed various triads in various places across the Earth-Moon system in anticipation of the next move of the superpowers’ leaderships. There were only so many moves. Only so many places. And one triad hit the jackpot.

Though finding the president in a huge chunk of rock filled with Praetorians is a long way from easy. The triad’s still trying to pinpoint his exact location, a task that’s made all the more difficult due to that triad’s immobility, holed up in a chamber that’s literally walled off within those corridors. It’s waiting for the other hit teams to reach the asteroid. But in the wake of Haskell’s disappearance from the zone its members may be about to change up their tactics.

Though Haskell’s not about to let that happen. Because now she winds up and lets herself pour forth; she’s fire burning through the sky of zone—she swoops down upon them all, merging her wings with those of the Throne and screaming in like a bird of prey. She can’t miss.

But she does.

Because next instant they’re not there. All three Rain hit teams vanish from the zone.

As does the whole Aerie.

The asteroid’s still there in physical space. Her eyes take it in upon the cameras the fleet has trained upon it. But she’s lost zone-contact with everything in it.

Including the Throne.

Suddenly there’s activity on the bridge around Spencer. The firewall around the Aerie just collapsed. There doesn’t seem to be any zone presence behind it either—though seismic readouts monitoring the surface show heavy combat has started within. “They’re sealing the drop-ships,” yells Linehan.

His voice is thick with static. But Spencer already knows exactly what the drop-ships are doing, along with the rest of the fleet. His mind’s a blur of motion as he works the zone in tandem with the prime razor. In the firmament beyond, he can see tactical command has been activated somewhere on the cylinder. He can’t see where, but he can see the result. The Larissa V engages its motors; nuclear-powered engines flare, sending the ship surging forward. Spencer feels himself pressed back in his seat. He watches the Platform roar in toward them—watches on virtual as hatches slide back from slots all along the ship and gun-barrels extend out into vacuum.

“What’s going on?” yells Linehan. He’s almost lost in static now.

“We’re attacking the fucking Platform! Get ready to get in there!”

The ship’s guns start firing.

The Operative turns toward the window as an explosion rocks the cylinder’s interior, several kilometers down the valley. Forest gets torn backward. Flames blast toward the inverted valleys overhead.

“Fuel-air bomb,” says Sarmax.

“Nasty,” says the Operative.

Not small either. The hole that’s now billowing smoke extends for several layers into the cylinder’s infrastructure. So far the cylinder’s atmosphere remains intact. But shots are ringing out. Sirens are going off. Lasers flash across the cylinder’s interior as micromissiles curl in toward their targets. Everybody visible on the streets and ramps and rooftops of the city is heading for doors leading inside. All too many are getting caught in the crossfire.

“This is more than just the Rain,” says Sarmax.

“Looks like they’ve managed to co-opt some of the Euro security forces,” replies the Operative, glancing at the Praetorians within this room. Several are watching the developing situation through the crosshairs of their heavy weapons. But most of them are watching the other window and the walls themselves. They have their assignments.

And now the whole cylinder’s rumbling as something massive smacks against it.

“What the fuck,” mutters Sarmax.

“The cylinder’s getting shelled from space.”

“By us?”

“Better hope so.”

Plan B is now Plan A: cut off from the Throne, Haskell has switched to link up with Huselid, who’s coordinating the counterattack. The asteroid remains out of contact, and a pitched battle’s clearly going on within. All hell’s starting to break loose within the cylinder.

But inside Haskell’s head it’s calm—a peace such as she’s never known. Because there’s no more future. Future’s here. She’s riding the raw moment—and now that the Rain have made their move, she’s making hers, countering the sinkhole the Rain were seeking to trigger in the zone, halting the fraying of its edges, preventing them from extending the rot any farther as she takes over executive capacity within the U.S. zone. She’s holding steady. She feels the zone creak around her as she shores up its foundations according to parameters that precisely mirror the patterns etched upon her. She’s extending her support to the Eurasian zone as well, though nothing seems to have happened there so far. But she’s sure the Rain are over there, continuing their infiltration runs. Or just playing for time. Because if the Rain in the Aerie can kill the president, it can take the executive node—rip the software from his skull and use it to wrest control of the entire zone from her.

But Huselid doesn’t seem worried. It’s almost as though he’s been expecting this. He’s unleashing a flurry of commands. Tactical battle readouts parade through her skull. The Rain hit teams in the cylinder are back online in combat mode, shielded against her onslaughts now, engaging with several Praetorian special-ops units—and those units are fully active in the zone, fully supported by the Hand and her. The ships outside are swooping in toward the Platform, opening fire, sending DE beams and KE shells streaking into the cylinder’s outermost layers to crash in and around the areas in which the Rain units are operating. And now the first of the dropships is deploying marines along the length of the cylinder, the majority of them near the middle where the fighting’s heaviest. Two of the ships coming in behind that first one are slated to deploy directly onto the surface of the Aerie. Haskell moves to shift some of the heavy vehicles situated in the levels beneath her closer to where the action’s going down.

But Huselid stops her. She sees his point. With the Throne cut off, this chamber has become the command post. And the forces protecting it are substantial—the Praetorians from the ships that docked earlier are massed along the outer perimeter, about a hundred meters out from where Haskell’s standing, while the Hand’s own shock troops form the inner perimeter, which starts about thirty meters from this room. Haskell can see that Huselid is anxious to maintain robust defenses around his makeshift citadel.

Particularly given the extent to which the security and household robots in the city have been hacked by the Rain. New London’s plunging into chaos. But the nearest Rain triad seems to have been trapped in a series of elevator shafts in the city’s basements. And the one just south of the cylinder’s equator has been pinned down in a construction area. The Rain have seized the bait. The hammer’s coming down upon them. And whatever’s going on within the asteroid, the Rain team there will have its work cut out for it in making headway against the main force of the Praetorian Core.

“We have them,” says the Hand.

Even as she feels the zone writhe beneath her.

The cannons of the Larissa V unleash on maximum strafe. Puffs of explosions dot the cylinder—and now the Platform’s giving way to space as the ship turns at a sickening angle and rushes parallel to the main cylinder.

“This is it!” screams Linehan—and cuts out as the drop-ship he’s in launches. Spencer watches it go on the screens within his head, watches the other dropships launch, watches as the Larissa V blasts past the Platform and engages its rear-guns. The targeted areas light up—and then go dark.

Along with everything else.

What the fuck,” says the Operative. His screens are showing static—within his helmet, but also within his head. He looks at Sarmax, who’s looking puzzled. The other Praetorians are clearly having the same problem. They’re communicating with hand signals. Those within this room are still holding their positions. But as to what’s happening to the Praetorian marines in the perimeter that defends this room, the Operative has no idea. He hears no sign of combat.

But the fighting in the cylinder has clearly stepped up several notches. The air’s ablaze with laser and tracer fire. Most of it’s concentrated some fifteen klicks out, but there’s plenty of it that’s a lot nearer. Two more fuel-air bombs have detonated. New London is on fire in several places. The Operative gets glimpses of mobs in the streets—tens of thousands of terrified people in full stampede along the ramps. In the far distance, a giant jet of flame gouts out from the southern mountains. Whatever’s going on behind them in the Aerie isn’t pretty. The Operative moves to where Sarmax is standing, places his helmet against his.

“They’ve lost the whole fucking zone,” he yells.

“Can you reestablish one-on-one?” yells Sarmax.

“It’s gone, man!”

“What do you mean it’s gone?”

“I mean it’s fucking vanished! We could broadcast in the clear, but that’s suicide!”

“So what do we do?” says Sarmax.

“Purge the loose ends and get ready for the mother of all slug-outs.”

“Loose ends?”

“Lynx. Let’s execute him.”

“Works for me,” says Sarmax. The Operative turns away, fires his suit’s thrusters, glides over to one of the Praetorian officers, slams his helmet up against his.

“Kill the prisoner,” he says.

“Sir, I need the authority of the Hand for that.”

“The Hand’s a little fucking busy right now,” snarls the Operative.

“Those are my orders.”

“Your orders have changed,” says the voice of the Hand.

Tsunami’s surging out across the zone. Nothing left around her. Nothing—save the implications of what she carved upon herself. What she failed to recognize. The nature of the real trap. “Both zones,” she says out loud.

They let her make the first move. They drew her in, convinced her that they had nothing in reserve, forced her to become the one thing propping up the universe. But now there’s no more universe left to prop. The Eurasian and U.S. zones have just gone down. The Rain used the legacies to link them, leveraged the proximity of the executive nodes of East and West.

And set them against each other like opposite charges to neutralize each other.

“What the hell?” says Huselid.

“Every wireless conduit,” she says. “Chain reaction.”

Autumn Rain’s razors just rode their megahack in style, smashing against every exposed razor they could find on the way down. They couldn’t damage her, though—couldn’t touch the razors under her personal protection, within the Hand’s perimeter. All they could do was yank the zone from under her feet.

But not the one within her head. Haskell’s the one thing that’s not affected—the one thing capable of restoring what’s been lost. She’s doing her utmost to jury-rig a whole new zone around her. But it’s going to be pathetically small. Because all she can reach is the software of those in immediate line-of-sight. Though that’s a damn sight farther than anyone else can manage. She beams new codes to the Hand, beams them to his bodyguards—sends soldiers racing out toward the outer perimeter to try to restore some semblance of order. Other soldiers are turning to the outer window of the room, setting up Morse code to signal the ships out there via direct visual.

“Order them all directly onto the Aerie,” snarls the Hand. “Tell them to hit that asteroid and deploy everything that’s left.”

But now the Rain make the move aimed at checkmate.

• • •

Spencer opens his eyes. It’s not easy. His head hurts. It feels like his nose is bleeding. He looks around. The bridge is in chaos. Personnel are removing panels, pulling out wires. Trying to find a way to control this ship, which continues to hurtle out into space, away from the Platform. Spencer wanders through his own mind’s haze, wonders if there’s anything he can do about it. Because it doesn’t look like the prime razor’s going to do shit. He’s sprawled in his chair, eyes staring at nothing.

“He’s fucking had it,” shouts a voice. “Now get the fuck over here!”

The captain hasn’t deigned to speak to his secondary razor until now. But Spencer just got a battlefield promotion—he releases his straps, fires his suit’s thrusters, jets over to where the captain’s holding onto his own chair. The captain points at the exec-dashboard in front of him.

“Get the fuck in there and give me control.”

“Sir.” And Spencer does. He finds himself blocked—slides past that blockage, reaches down the redundant wires, bypasses the software to interface directly with the engines. It’s not much. Every wireless conduit that might lead to the larger zone beyond this ship is fucked. But it’ll have to do.

“I have it,” he says. “Give me orders, sir.”

“Back to the fucking Platform,” says the captain, giving him the vectors—and turning from there to the gunnery officers, starting to gesture at them to get their consoles’ wires extended to where Spencer is. But Spencer’s got eyes only for the fragment of the ship’s zone that’s still remaining, a glowing ember amidst scattered ash. The angle along which he’s turning the craft is almost insanely aggressive, in large part because he’s only got partial control of the steering. He feels G-forces building upon him. He watches people clinging to their straps and chairs. He watches panels that have been torn loose fly into the walls—watches the Platform swing back into the windows and start to rush in toward them once more. Two other ships are out in front of them. They’ve managed to get back in the game as well. They’re running the same race, closing on the same target.

“Landfall on the asteroid,” says the captain. “Following coordinates.”

Spencer lines up the approaching Aerie. But now one of the ships that’s up ahead lights up in a sudden flash—a flash that intensifies as its armor crumbles and its engines detonate.

“Gone,” screams someone.

“What the hell’s going on?” yells the captain.

“We’re under fire, sir,” says Spencer.

“I can see that! What the fuck’s shooting at us?”

“I’m trying to figure that out!” screams Spencer. “Give me a fucking moment!”

“We don’t have any moments! Evasive action!”

But Spencer’s already got that going. Everything that’s not tied down starts moving again. A huge bolt of energy just misses their ship, flashes past on the screens. Spencer runs subroutines on what’s left of the ship’s comps; he traces that energy’s strength and direction, looks back along its route, reaches its source.

And finds himself staring across a hundred kilometers at the Helios Station.

Blasts keep on rocking the chamber. The Praetorians have switched back from hand signals to the one-on-one. And now Lynx sails on thrusters back into the room. Sarmax looks at the Operative. “Thought he was supposed to be dead.”

“Divine intervention,” says the Operative.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“The Manilishi. Apparently she purged his skull’s software. He’s clean.”

“Not that it matters,” says Sarmax, gesturing at the window. Lynx reaches them, stares out at it—and whistles.

“Christ,” he says, “they’re going to town.”

An understatement. The shelling of the Praetorian ships has penetrated the cylinder in several places. And somebody’s busy blowing airlocks. People are getting sucked by the thousands down tunnels and holes now laid open.

“Look on the bright side,” says Sarmax. “The vacuum’ll put out the fires.”

“I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” says Lynx.

About as bad as it gets,” says the Operative. “We could use you back in the game. How’s your hand?”

“Fucked,” says Lynx.

“He means can you fight,” says Sarmax.

“I know what he means, you prick. The answer’s yes.”

“It’s less a question of lost firepower,” says the Operative. “More one of—”

“Lost balance?” Lynx’s smile is pure ice. “Armor can compensate. Particularly with the download that bitch just gave me. So we’ve lost the broader zone?”

“Yup,” says Sarmax. “The Manilishi and the Hand seem to have managed to get a local connection going. And that’s it.”

“Where’s the Throne?” asks Lynx.

“In the asteroid,” says the Operative.

“Still fighting?”

“Who knows?”

The three men amp their scopes, peer out into the cylinder’s vast hollow. Most of the lighting is gone now. Explosions flash out amidst the gathering dark. Half the Platform’s robots seem to be running programs set in motion by the Rain. Debris flies past the window. Tracer-fire cuts swathes everywhere.

“Let’s prep tactics,” says the Operative.

“Has the Hand given you scenarios?” asks Lynx.

“He’s given me nothing,” says the Operative. “I think he and his new friend are trying to assess events.”

“They’d better catch up quick,” says Sarmax.

But now the Operative’s heads-up is giving him more data—directly from the Hand/Manilishi battle management node. Some of the Praetorians are pointing at the exterior window.

“Someone’s lighting up the vacuum,” says the Operative

“With what?” asks Lynx.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” says Sarmax.

They’ve already processed the implications. Ten klicks long and studded with microwave and laser projectors, the Helios has long served as a linchpin of power-generation for the L3 system. It can divide its energy among its dishes or channel it all through a single one. It seems to be firing through about fifteen of them right now, changing those fifteen up to allow it maximum field of fire upon the targets that it’s now engaging. It was never intended for anything but peaceful purposes.

Though its new owners could give two shits.

“We and the East had four special-ops teams apiece up there,” says the Hand.

“Not anymore,” says Haskell.

“Why the fuck didn’t you spot them up there?” he demands.

“Presumably they were hiding in the East’s zone.”

“Order all our ships onto the attack—”

“Done it already. But—”

“I know,” he says. “They don’t have a prayer.”

“Neither do we,” she says. Her mind runs through the inventory. They’re pinned down. The Throne’s pinned down. The zone’s paralyzed, as are all forces throughout the Earth-Moon system. They’re confronted by the Rain’s elite. And they can only assume that whatever’s going on in the asteroid is even more of a nightmare than what’s going down in both windows.

“I agree,” says the Hand. A scenario flits from his head to hers. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

She stares at what’s turning in her mind. “Are you sure?”

“Only option we’ve got left.”

The ship hurtles in. The bridge-crew can see the odds against them as certain as any number that’s left on their screens. That thing out there is basically a directed-energy machine gun. A hundred klicks is basically a turkey shoot.

“Evasive action!” screams the captain.

But Spencer’s already giving it all he’s got. The Platform veers crazily in the window. Spencer feeds in instructions from the gunnery officer, lets the ship’s batteries rip, peppering the Helios with fire while more shots streak in from the few remaining emplacements on the asteroids and the surviving ships.

“Target remains eighty-five percent effective,” says the gunnery officer calmly.

“Use the fucking Platform!” shouts the navigator. “Use the fucking Platform!”

And Spencer’s trying—doing his utmost to keep the Platform between him and this monster—trying to pop out and fire and then dart back into cover. But those kinds of precision maneuvers are pretty much beyond the capacity of this ship now. He watches clouds of humans starting to billow from the northern end of the Platform. He realizes with sick finality that there’s no way out of this. He slams his visor. Just as a microwave spear impales them.

The Praetorians aren’t moving. But the Operative can see they’re standing at attention anyway. He can see their eyes shifting in their visors as they cease their private conversations. He’s getting instructions now too.

“Relay these to your men,” says the Hand.

“Listen to this,” the Operative says to Sarmax and Lynx.

The Hand is now moving away from the inner deck. The Manilishi is following him. The Hand’s bodyguards cluster about both of them. Soldiers start exiting the room as they receive specific tactical instructions. The Operative hears engines starting up at close range—from the sound of it, the mechanized units of the Praetorians on the outer perimeter. Beyond that he hears only the rumbling of explosions within the cylinder.

But now that changes.

Spencer’s aware of some kind of roaring noise. His brain feels like it’s been burned to a crisp. He can see nothing but white light. He wishes the afterlife was less painful.

But now that white is fading into the black of space. He focuses, realizes the window’s gone, along with the rest of the bridge. Somehow he’s been blasted about twenty meters farther back into the ship. He’s wedged in beneath some debris, his suit somehow still intact. Dead bodies are everywhere. So are those of the living, clinging to what’s left of the walls. Vibration keeps on washing through him. The engines of the ship are going haywire. And now the Platform comes into sight, careening in toward them. Metal surface fills Spencer’s view. He braces himself as though it still mattered.

T HIS IS THE HAND. THIS IS BEING BROADCAST ON SECURE CHANNEL ENABLED BY THE MANILISHI, THE RAZOR NOW AT MY SIDE. YOU’RE TO PROTECT HER AS YOU PROTECT ME. THE DECISIVE BATTLE IS UNDER WAY. OUR THRONE IS TRAPPED BY RAIN COMMANDOS IN THE NEAREST OF THE AERIES. WE’RE GOING TO CROSS THE CYLINDER AND RESCUE OUR PRESIDENT. WE’RE GOING TO DESTROY THE ABOMINATION CALLED RAIN. DETAILED TACTICAL OVERLAYS TO FOLLOW .

The Operative receives those overlays for his team, relays them to Lynx and Sarmax.

“This is fucking it,” says Sarmax.

“Straight shot to glory,” says Lynx.

“Let’s move out,” says the Operative.

But even as he says those words, the whole cylinder shakes—shakes still harder, shakes like it’s breaking apart. About ten klicks distant in that wilderness of dark and tracer lines, one of the valleys ruptures into flame. What’s left of a burning spaceship bursts through, pulling ground and metal with it, falling back onto what’s left of that ground, shredding itself and everything around it as what’s left of its engines keep on firing.

“That’s a new one,” says Sarmax.