The Machinery of Light

PART III LODESTONE’S VIGIL

My fellow Americans.”

It’s two days later. The U.S. president is on the screen. The latest one, at any rate. It’s been getting increasingly hard to keep up. Particularly when it seems to matter less and less each time a new one takes over.

“I come before you at a critical hour. Since I last addressed you, the situation has grown graver. All our peace overtures to the Eurasian Coalition have been rejected out of hand. It is now clear that the only peace the Coalition envisions is one that involves our complete submission. As long as I am president, that will never happen.

“But I must be candid regarding the magnitude of what has befallen us. We have heard nothing from our forces planetside. All we know is what we can see: that the Coalition has occupied North America, and has begun what I can only term the enslavement of our population. To the extent resistance continues, it is confined deep below the surface, and has no military impact that we can discern. The East’s control of Earth’s orbits is now total, and the buildup of their fleets at L4 and L5 has continued without abatement.

All of our forces at L5 are either dead or prisoners of war. I wish I could offer you assurances that they are receiving the treatment that the laws of war demand, but I am unable to do so. The East was always capable of anything; now that they are on the brink of domination, we at last see their true colors.

“We are the only thing remaining in their way. When I addressed you two days back it was to tell you of the sad news of my predecessor’s death. But it was also to inform you that President Montrose met the same hero’s end as our beloved Andrew Harrison: at the head of our forces, fighting for the liberty of all of us. And with her last breath she bequeathed the presidency to me and charged me with the leadership of our nation. I accepted this sacred trust, and with that trust, I swore to be true to the American people.

“Nor can there be any doubt now as to what we face next. We are confined to the Moon and the immediate lunar orbits. And we still have our fleet at L2. But the Eurasian Coalition controls all else. Once their fleets at L4 and L5 have reached critical mass, they will strike at us from two sides with a combined force far larger than our own. They will seek to crush all resistance and trample the last American flags beneath their boots. They will seek to place us in bondage and rule humanity forever. We are all that stands in defense of freedom.

“And we have no choice but to be worthy of that task. My admirals and I are formulating plans that will take advantage of the overwhelming overconfidence that the Eurasians now display. They think that they have already won. We are going to show them just how wrong they are. We shall deploy new weapons, about which I can provide no details lest we play into the hands of our enemies. To say we have not yet begun to fight is mere understatement.

“I know these last few days have tried us all to our very depths. The hours to come will try us still further. Our hope is to destroy the Eurasian ships before they reach the Moon, but this may not be possible in all cases—some enemy units may attain the Moon before our countermeasures take full effect. They may even force their way into the lunar cities. Should this happen, we will fight them every step of the way. We will battle them in the streets and in the tunnels, because there can be no surrender. Because Americans have no place in the dark new order the Coalition is bent on establishing—no place at all, save that of slaves.

“We did not choose this war. We offered the Coalition an honorable peace, and instead they struck down the greatest of our leaders. The Eurasians have waged this war without mercy, and we will defeat them utterly. We will hurl the East from the orbits, and we will retake our homeland. May God aid us in this sacred task. May God defend the United States of America—”

The screen beside the window goes blank. Presumably the rest of the screens across this ship have done the same. Lynx chuckles.

“He’s fucked.”

“Not necessarily,” replies the Operative.

“You believe all that shit about secret weapons?”

“He’s already got at least one,” says the Operative.

“If he can figure out how to harness her.”

“I’m sure he’s working on it.”

“Why would he succeed where you and Montrose both failed?”

“It’s funny. Everyone keeps underestimating Szilard. Yet here he is, still in the game.”

“Not for much longer,” says Lynx.

“Think about it, man. He’s already had more chance to crack Haskell than Montrose got.”

“He’s certainly done a better job of keeping hold of the reins than she did.”

“The man’s an expert at keeping out of sight.”

“So where is he now?”

“Nowhere near us,” says the Operative.

“Can’t disagree with that.”

They gaze out the window. A swathe of the L2 fleet is clearly visible, stretching away from them like a bridge of lights. The far side of the Moon lies beyond.

“He’s still down there,” says Lynx.

“Leaving us in a real fucking bind.”

Lynx sighs. “Surely there are some exceptions being made?”

“In theory, sure.”

“But not in practice.”

“You’ve seen the data,” says the Operative. “If you spot anything I’ve missed, name it. Nothing’s left this fleet. Nothing’s gone back to the Moon. Nothing will.”

“Funny how our minions don’t seem to get it.”

“They’ll figure it out sooner or later.”

“Linehan was trying to strut his stuff in front of the dynamic duo. Telling them that Szilard’s keeping the fleet out here makes no strategic sense.”

“He may not be wrong.”

“Bullshit.”

“Relax,” says the Operative. “Feed the current situation into ten battle-management computers and—”

“They’d just laugh in your face. Tell us we’re screwed.”

“Sure. But the question is how to play a shit hand. I’ll bet you it’d be a split jury, and at least a couple of those comps would say what Linehan just said—oh yeah, get those ships close in behind the Moon pronto—and the others might say hold back here and engage from long range. Who knows? We’re in uncharted waters now. But none of this relates to the real reason the fleet’s staying put out here—”

“Us.”

“Yeah,” says the Operative. There’s a moment’s pause. “Nice to be wanted, huh?”

“Two of the three members of the first Rain triad, still on the loose, with the Redeemer blown all over the rest of the L2 fleet. At least fifteen sections docked in different places. You and I could be anywhere by now.”

“But still on the goddamn fleet. Pinned down.”

“It’s stalemate,” says Lynx. “We can’t get at him and he can’t get at us.”

“So let’s talk about what we can get.”

They can’t get their hands on anything that matters. To say they’ve been outmaneuvered is putting it mildly. They’ve been trapped on this stupid ship for two days now. These last forty-eight hours have seemed like years. Long enough to cut their way through to some of the main shafts, not that it’s done them any good. All the places worth getting to involve leaving this ship.

And that’s impossible. Everyone’s staying put. The crew’s been confined to the ship, as have all remaining soldiers. Spencer wonders if that means someone’s wise to their presence. Jarvin explained it’s just a precaution. Same reason the search parties are combing this ship. The Chinese know full well there are rats hiding within the walls. It’s just that every rat they’ve caught so far is Russian. On-the-spot executions are getting meted out like they’re going out of style. Though Spencer’s got a feeling they’ll always be in fashion.

Particularly now that the Eurasian Coalition’s under new management. All traces of the Russian zone have vanished completely. China’s making its bid for domination of all existence. Some of the Russian ships have been destroyed. Most just got taken over—repurposed with skeleton crews. Spencer’s got a ringside seat into the fleet that’s building up around the Hammer of the Skies. The size of it is way beyond unprecedented. It’s like nothing that Spencer’s ever seen—a colossal armada, and beyond it are still more ships: the endless reinforcements, long lines of convoys chugging up the gravity-well from Earth. A similar scene is going on at L4. The Coalition’s forces at the libration points already outnumber the American ships behind the Moon by two to one. Meaning things could kick off any time.

And that would really suck. Because it turns out that Spencer and Sarmax and Jarvin are on the wrong megaship. The one that counts is Righteous Fire-Dragon. That’s where Matthew Sinclair got taken as soon as he was placed in custody, along with all the other high-security prisoners. He’s still there now, because no one’s left this whole time. Not that Spencer sees where within the Righteous Fire-Dragon Sinclair’s being held: he’s got a clear enough view into the rest of the fleet, but not that megaship. It’s the same with Jarvin.

At least that’s what the man claims. Spencer doesn’t trust him for shit, of course. He’s spent a lot of the last forty-eight hours trying to devise a way to protect himself from whatever Jarvin might pull. Anyone who rose to head up CICom operations in HK is going to be a master manipulator by definition. Jarvin’s faking of Praesidium credentials was the icing on the cake. It was just too bad that he picked the wrong side of the impending civil war. They’re working on getting at one with the Chinese way of thought now. Jarvin gave them the Mandarin downloads. The Chinese zone’s harder to navigate than the Russian. But they’re managing so far. They’ve got new suits, stolen from one of the armories. They’ve got new identities. But nothing’s got clearance to get off this fucking ship.

Leaving Spencer’s software plenty of time to sort through zone permutations while his mind sorts through everything else. Memories pour over him … the lights beneath the Atlantic … the smile of a woman he used to know back in Minneapolis. He knows she’s dead. He wonders what it was like when the def-grids broke and the rain of fire poured in. He can’t believe the United States has been wiped off the map. He looks at the Moon, and he can’t believe what’s left. He knows this game is closing on its end. He knows that ultimately Jarvin and Sarmax are the competition—figures that’s the only sensible way to view things. Jarvin’s all analysis, no weakness. But Sarmax is getting ever more volatile—progressively more dangerous as his mood gets worse and worse. Spencer wonders what’s bugging him—guesses that whatever it is, it’s not what would be getting to the typical mech in this situation. The typical mech would be driven crazy by inaction—would be going out of his mind sitting there and waiting for the razors to come up with a solution. But Sarmax seems to be a man who’s used to dwelling within himself. Whatever’s eating him is something deeper. Particularly since he’s showing the same signs he was showing back when this run was first beginning—back when he and Spencer were hiding out in Hong Kong. Some demon’s eating at Leo Sarmax. Spencer wonders if it’s the same thing that dragged him back into the game after all those years on the lunar South Pole—maybe even the reason why he went AWOL in the first place.

But all of it is mere background to the main event that’s going down in Spencer’s head. His primary focus across the hours has been dealing with the thing that’s plagued him for so long. All those files within his head, compiled by the man whose suit is attached like a limpet a little farther down this shaft—and who stole those files from the man held captive in the other megaship. And the deeper he gets into those files, the more Spencer finds that it’s all starting to blur together—the men around him, the ship about him, the clouds of lights beyond—all of it coalescing while Spencer paces through the canyons of his mind, thinking along angles he’s never thought before. The files are giving way before him. Twenty-four hours, and he’s making progress by pure process of elimination. Twelve more, and finally he’s cracking some codes. All those letters from all those faux alphabets—he’s at last seeing a rhythm to their seeming randomness. Something’s coming into view before him. Vast realms of data, and he really doesn’t want to believe what it’s telling him. The audacity of it all floors him. The fact that this is simply the tip of the iceberg scares him shitless. But it also offers a new way to approach the current situation. He keys the conduit to the other two men.

“I got an idea,” he says.

The president’s convoy has been on the move inside the Moon for two days now. Two days in which Haskell’s lived many lifetimes over within herself. She keeps on thinking of the face of Strom Carson. She can’t believe he’s dead. She wonders if he really had turned a corner—if he glimpsed something larger than his own ambition in the moments before he died. She wonders if he died well. She’s wondering who did it—speculating whether she could have pulled the trigger if it had ever come to it. She’s glad it never will. The endless trek through the Moon seems like some kind of relentless dream. President Szilard doesn’t intend to make the same mistake as his predecessor. He believes in mobility. It seems to be working so far—no coups have come close to succeeding. He’s still running things, even if they’re falling down around his ears. Haskell’s been in and out of more maglev trains than she can count. And a lot of crawlers too—moving down long tunnels bereft of rail, en route to the next railhead, shifting through the seemingly endless labyrinth of tunnels dug across the century of man’s occupation of the Moon.

Now they’re in a shuttle of some kind. She can’t believe that Szilard’s risking a move above the surface, but presumably he has his reasons. His marines have continued to show her every courtesy. She figured they’d be keeping her in a crate. But instead they’ve allotted her comfortable quarters aboard every vehicle. Maybe Szilard’s trying to win her over. Or soften her up.

But what he hasn’t tried to do is interrogate her. He hasn’t attempted to do what everyone else has—take her apart and find out what makes her tick. She knows he’s going to have to try. Particularly when what’s in her brain might be his only hope of staving off the East. But he’s been holding off. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out why. She’s a Pandora’s box. Her mind’s a maelstrom stretching out beyond time. She can’t even begin to get a grip on what she’s becoming. Despite the fact that Szilard’s cut her off from zone, she’s somehow eavesdropping on the universe. Static pours across her naked brain, most of it unintelligible, but shot through that cacophony are thoughts, emotions … other minds … she catches images of refugees pouring south into Mexico, of the mass graves the Eurasians are digging up and down the U.S. eastern seaboard. She feels the agony of the planet itself as though the biosphere was a living thing—as though it was flesh from which great chunks had been torn. She figures she’s going insane. She can’t wait to get all the way there. The expressions of the marines who bring her food and water tell her just how far gone she is. They’re all too conscious of the designs scratched upon her body. They won’t even look at her—they’re terrified of her. She knows the feeling.

But eventually the moment that she’s been waiting for arrives. It’s just a moment like any other. Yet somehow she sees it rolling in toward her anyway—sees the door slide open.

Szilard enters the room.

“Figured you’d come eventually,” she says.

A rec room aboard the American cruiser Spartacus: a lot of off-duty personnel here, biding time between shifts. Everyone’s looking pretty tense. Those who aren’t might be suspected of downing a little bootleg booze. The MPs keep on busting up the stills hidden all over the ship, but they can be certain they’re failing to find them all.

The Operative and Lynx have a whole different set of fish to fry. They enter the room and head over to where three men are playing gin rummy.

“Can we interest you in a game of Shuk?” says Lynx.

“Why not,” Maschler shrugs.

“You guys have been gone for half an hour,” says Linehan.

“So?”

“So where the fuck were you?”

“Eating out your mom,” says Lynx.

“Everybody relax,” says the Operative.

Riley starts dishing out the cards. “They’ve been scoping out the next move, of course.”

“Of course,” says Lynx.

“Namely?”

“The next shuttle out of here.”

Maschler checks the schedule. “The 22:10?”

“That’s the one.”

“But what’s the plan?” says Riley.

The Operative laughs. “You’re all still alive, aren’t you? Still under our zone protection, right?”

“For now,” says Maschler.

“For as long as it suits them,” says Linehan, and flicks a card onto the table. “Look, no offense, but I’m sick of this. We’ve been bouncing around this goddamn fleet like a goddamn Ping-Pong ball for two days now, and the two of you haven’t given us a clue as to what’s really going down.”

“You know exactly what’s going down,” says Lynx.

“We are,” says the Operative. “Trying to get to the Moon.”

“So why haven’t we done it yet?”

“These things take time. We’re in a war—or didn’t you notice?”

“Oh, we noticed,” says Maschler.

“Caught the president’s speech,” says Riley. “Good stuff.”

“You’re talking about the man who fed your last boss to the sharks,” says Linehan.

“Gotta stay flexible if you want to stay afloat,” says Riley.

This I can’t wait to hear,” says Sarmax.

“I’ve got a way off this ship,” says Spencer.

“There is no way off,” says Jarvin.

“All crew are confined,” says Sarmax.

Spencer looks at the two men—looks at all the designs unfolding in his head. He feels almost reluctant to tell them what he’s about to, feels like he might be saying too much. He’s tempted to just steal away in these shafts and go for it himself. But he’s figuring he still needs these men. He’s all too aware of the delicate balance. As soon as one of the three gets killed, that’ll leave the second utterly in the power of the third. Spencer’s already gone through the scenarios: if he gets taken off the board, Sarmax will be at the mercy of Jarvin—and the mech will be in a similar position vis-a-vis Spencer if Jarvin bites it. Yet Sarmax is also the only counter Spencer has to Jarvin himself. It’s complex enough to make one’s head spin. But together, the three of them might be able to take on whatever’s going on in the next megaship. Spencer knows that once they start moving again, the stakes get raised even higher. But he also knows they’re running out of time. That he should have thought of all this half a day back. That it’s just too bad he wasn’t quicker.

“Well,” he says, “it’s like this.”

Where are we now?” she asks.

“Heading for the South Pole,” says Szilard.

“You don’t need to go aboveground to do that.”

“Somewhere nearby, then.”

“Prime real estate, huh?”

Jharek Szilard laughs. Unexpectedly, he sits down on the floor in front of her, folds his lanky body up in a movement that’s almost sinuous. He gazes up at her.

“You’re quite a woman,” he says.

She looks at him without expression.

“Oh don’t worry. My tastes don’t run that way. Doesn’t mean I can’t express admiration for the girl around whom it’s all spinning. Especially with all that art you’ve adorned yourself with—”

“Let’s cut the bullshit,” she says.

“Who said it was bullshit?”

“To you I’m just a tool.”

“Wrong. That’s the mistake that Montrose made.”

“Among others,” says Haskell.

“And I took advantage of most of them.”

“Do you have a back door to me?”

“No.”

“Then how did you beat Montrose?”

“Never ask a magician to reveal his secrets.”

“Control was your creature, wasn’t he?”

“I suppose that’s one possibility,” says Szilard.

“There are others?”

“Stephanie started something she couldn’t finish.”

“Me.”

“Exactly. She couldn’t figure you out.”

Haskell makes a face. “I’ve got the same problem.”

“That’s the way Sinclair set it up.”

“And you really think you can beat him?”

“Do I need to? If he’s still alive, the Chinese have him.”

“If that’s so, that’s only because he wants it that way.”

“You think he’s that good?”

“I think you need to stop thinking of him as human.”

Szilard sighs. “Look, Claire, I get it. Okay? This war is mere veneer on the real war that’s raging. And to seriously answer your question: I can’t be sure of beating him unless I’ve got you. Will you help?”

“My answer makes no difference.”

“Of course it does.”

“You can’t afford to let me go—ever. Nor can you afford to venture into my mind without the proper key.”

“Let me get back to you on that,” says Szilard.

Time to go,” says the Operative.

“Just when I was winning,” says Linehan.

They troop out of the rec room. They’re all dressed as SpaceCom marines—as is virtually everyone else they pass in the halls. They start climbing ladders down to the shuttle bays.

“These guys are fucking with us,” says Riley.

“You’ve said that already,” says Linehan.

“Nothing wrong with restating the facts,” says Maschler.

The three men are on their own wireless channel, with their own codes—ones that Spencer gave Linehan back in the day. He knows that there’s a chance Carson or Lynx might have hacked the line. He wonders if they’re using him to keep an eye on the other two. He scarcely cares. He feels that his grip on reality has been getting ever more tenuous these last two days. But that doesn’t mean he’s not up to playing a role.

“The facts are that neither of you guys is a razor.”

“You ain’t either,” says Maschler.

“Which is why we’re getting buttfucked by two men who are.”

“Mechs are worth less and less every day,” says Riley.

Linehan snorts. “So why the hell did Montrose detail two mechs to keep an eye on Carson?”

“What should she have done?”

“Use a fucking razor!”

“She did,” says Maschler.

“The Manilishi was riding shotgun,” says Riley.

“That didn’t seem to work as well as your boss hoped.”

“That’s why she’s not our boss anymore.”

“And Carson is.”

“Or Lynx,” says Maschler. “No telling who’s got the upper hand.”

“I’d bet on Carson,” says Linehan.

“You do that,” says Riley. “We won’t get in your way.”

“Not when we’ve seen the man in action,” says Maschler. “He was hell on bloody wheels when that Elevator blew.”

“You already told me,” says Linehan wearily.

“It bears repeating,” says Riley. “He’s a fucking Houdini, and no mistake. We were fresh out of options and he found a way to get us high and dry.”

“You think he’ll be able to get us off this fleet?” asks Linehan.

Maschler laugh. “Himself off, sure.”

“Even when there’s literally no way to do that?”

“That’s when the man’s at his best,” says Riley.

That is so much bullshit,” says Sarmax.

“I wish it was,” says Spencer.

“It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“I daresay you’ll hear crazier before it’s all over.”

But while he replies to Sarmax, Spencer’s keeping an eye on Jarvin. That’s the reaction he’s really interested in. He watches that man’s face behind that visor, watches him mull over possibilities—watches his lips form the words—

“What’s your angle on this?” asks Jarvin.

“My angle’s getting us off this ship.”

“But this—what you’re saying—it’s insane—”

“Does it hurt that I’ve gotten ahead of you on these files?”

Jarvin says nothing. Spencer decides that it probably does. He decides to rub it in.

“Take a look at what you’re missing,” he says, beaming data to Jarvin and Sarmax. Not all of it, of course. Just enough to make the point. He waits—counts to just shy of thirty seconds—

“You got this from the files?” says Sarmax.

“No,” says Spencer, “I used the files to get this.”

“What kind of yarn are you spinning?”

“The best kind,” says Jarvin. “He’s right.”

“You’re convinced?” says Spencer.

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

The shuttle’s been pitching and yawing for some time, as though it’s maneuvering through rugged terrain. Not being able to see where it’s going makes for a disquieting experience. Haskell’s relieved when the craft finally touches down. She feels vibration roll beneath her as whatever platform the shuttle’s just landed on starts lowering. Ten seconds later, all motion stops.

Five seconds after that, there’s a knock on her door. She doesn’t know why they bother, but Szilard seems determined to keep up appearances. So far he’s been the only one to show up unannounced. She figures she may as well humor them.

“Come in,” she says.

The door opens. The marine who stands there won’t meet her eyes.

“We need you to put on a suit, ma’am,” he says.

“To go where?”

Hesitation—“The president awaits you.”

The auxiliary hangar of the Spartacus has several shuttles docked, several bays empty. There are a lot of mechanics and technicians. Lot of soldiers, too. Looks like someone’s making last-minute rearrangements of the fleet’s garrisons. There are five men in particular who aren’t complaining.

“Let’s go,” says the Operative. He moves toward the shuttle door; the other four follow him. They give their IDs—a commando squad getting reassigned. They get on board. The shuttle pushes back. The hull of the Spartacus falls past, giving way to a spectacular view: the L2 fleet stretching away, ships slowly rotating in the sun. The Operative gets on the one-on-one with Linehan.

“Was wondering if you had time for a quick chat,” he says.

“Why not,” replies Linehan.

They maneuver stealthily past more Chinese soldiers. There’s still a lot of cleanup going on. Blood’s literally getting mopped off the walls. They’re well into the rear of the craft now. Spencer’s mind billows out around him, gathering the whole ship under its sway. A hatch swings open.

“Let’s go,” he says.

She’s in a suit that contains just the basics, being led along passages of a place that could be virtually any lunar base. A few more minutes, and her escorts usher her through into a much larger room—possibly a quarter-kilometer across. It’s a dome.

And what it contains used to be a garden.

“Jesus,” she says.

It’s been burnt all to hell. Ash is everywhere. The skeletal remains of what might have been a forest jut here and there. Pieces of the ceiling hang like icicles, casting eerie shadows in the floodlights that have been set up by the marines standing sentry all around. Haskell’s escorts lead her through a path in the ash. It seems like maybe it might have been a stream once, but there’s no sign of water now. Up another hill of ash, and they reach what’s left of a gazebo …

Jharek Szilard stands within. Haskell’s escorts stop just short, motion her forward.

Linehan stares out the window at the flickering lights.

They look all too familiar. L2’s the closest thing to home he’s ever known. That’s why he’s always wanted to see it burn. He’s glad he came back here to see it happen. Now he can barely wait.

“What’s up, boss?” he says.

“You’ve been talking with Maschler and Riley?” Carson asks.

“Sure,” says Linehan.

“What’d they say?”

“You don’t know?”

“Pretend I don’t.”

“Just low-grade bitching, boss.”

“Define ‘low-grade.’”

“The kind that’s only a problem when it stops.”

“Has Lynx talked to you?”

Linehan says nothing.

“Well?” demands Carson.

“No.”

“Why do I not quite believe that?”

“What do you want me to do if he does?”

“Hear him out. Laugh at his retarded jokes.”

“That might be tough.”

“What’ll be tough is if you cross me.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Other than the fact that otherwise you’re dead?”

“I understand sticks just fine,” says Linehan. “But I like carrot too. What are you and Lynx looking for anyway?”

“Who says we’re looking for something?”

“I’m not stupid, Carson.”

“Then you’ll appreciate the importance of finding a way off this goddamn fleet.”

“Sure, but you guys are running some other agenda. All this beetling back and forth to different parts of the fleet—you’re searching for something.”

“An interesting theory. What do you think we’re after?”

“Beats me.”

“Good,” says Carson. “Look, being kept in the dark is frustrating. But trust me, you don’t want to know the big picture.”

“How about letting me be the judge of that?”

“How about letting me worry about the shit that’s above your pay grade? Point is that when the moment comes, you’re going to have to make a choice.”

“Between you and Lynx.”

“Maschler and Riley are only along for the ride because we’re going to need all the muscle we can get for the stunts we’re about to pull. I know you won’t give anything they say a second thought. But Lynx is nothing if not persuasive. He’s got a way of getting inside one’s head with his twists of what he’ll try to convince you passes for logic. But he won’t forget the fact that you already fucked him over.”

“Szilard fucked him over. Using me.”

“You think that matters to him?”

“Probably not.”

“What matters is that you never crossed me. And you saved us all at the Europa Platform. Stay on my side, and you’ll have anything you want, Linehan. Anything. Freedom from all this bullshit, no bosses, dominion over whatever—doesn’t matter. Fuck, you can have Mars if you want it.”

“That’s what Harrison offered me. A place up there—”

“I’m offering you the whole planet.”

Pause. “You’re not serious.”

“Why not?” says the Operative. “Not like I want the dump. Look man, the one thing I’m loyal to is loyalty. And I’m going to need it when the shit hits the mother of all fans.”

“And that’d be when?”

“Hate to say it, but probably before we’re ready.”

“You’re running behind schedule?”

“Now we’ll see if you can keep a secret.”

The shuttle initiates docking sequence.

They head from the maintenance shafts to auxiliary shafts to elevator shafts. They reach the spine of the ship in short order and start making haste along it. There’s a clanking noise below them. Cable starts to reel past them.

“Grab it,” says Sarmax.

They do—it starts to haul them out of the forward levels of the ship. The elevator car whips past them, heading in the direction they’ve come from as they drop into the middle layers.

“Let’s change it up,” says Spencer.

“Agreed,” says Jarvin.

Spencer finds that annoying. It doesn’t matter what Jarvin thinks or says, now that Spencer has the data in his head—the vantage point on Eastern zone he’s been seeking, which in turn provides perspective on so much else. He steps from the cable onto the wall of the shaft, his magnetic grips clinging while his camo cranks away. The others follow him through a crawlspace that leads into one of the parallel shafts. This one’s much narrower. The elevators that run through it are intended purely for personnel. They grab another cable, alight on an elevator car that’s moving fast toward the rear of the ship—they enter via the ceiling into the empty car.

“Let’s hope your confidence is justified,” says Jarvin.

“Not my fault you couldn’t translate what you stole,” says Spencer.

“You really broke through on everything?”

“Not all of it, no.”

“But enough of it to—”

“It’s their zone tactics,” says Spencer. “Their strategy.”

“Autumn Rain’s.”

“Like nothing I’ve ever seen. Precise guidelines—a fucking manual—for how to use the legacy zones to creep up and around the current ones.”

“Like they did in South America.”

“And at the Europa Platform. And everywhere else. And how to remain undetected while they were doing it. I took a tour through yesterday’s Russia, climbed out into today’s Moscow, and got in behind the Praesidium’s firewall.”

“Penetrated it altogether?” Jarvin sounds skeptical.

“The next best thing. Managed to move a few files outside of it. Got the blueprints for what we’re heading toward—not to mention the real lowdown on the fleet logistics.”

“Which are?”

“They’re about to green-light the final assault,” says Spencer. He works a sequence on the zone; the elevator slows, slides to a halt.

“What the hell’s going on?” says Sarmax.

“We’re between floors,” says Jarvin.

The doors are opening anyway—

Haskell walks up to the president. He looks down at her, floodlights reflected in his visor. The blighted garden stretches all around them. Szilard’s bodyguards stand close at hand.

“Quite a place,” she says.

“It used to look a little more impressive.”

“I’ll bet.”

“What happened here?” he asks.

She shrugs. “Some Rain operatives had a dustup.”

“Fighting among themselves?”

“A habit of theirs.”

“Sarmax and Carson, right?”

She nods.

“Who won?”

“Does it look like anyone won?”

“And you know all this because—?”

“Carson told me.”

“He told you? Or can you sense it?”

“I’m not that good.”

“Not yet,” he says.

There’s a pause. “So how much do you know?” she asks.

“A lot more than I did.”

“These last forty-eight hours—where have we been?”

“All over,” Szilard replies. “Some backup mainframes beneath Agrippa. Some bombed-out tunnels beneath what used to be Eurasian territory. A storage locker in Congreve. Not to mention—”

“Nansen Station?”

Szilard shakes his head. “I delegated that one. Didn’t think it would be prudent to go there myself.”

“Too predictable?”

“‘Predictable’ is a word I rarely use,” he says. “If something’s predictable enough, then only a fool would do it, meaning no one expects you to do it, meaning more often than not you can pull it off. The possibility for double- and triple-fakes is endless, especially if you’re dealing with Rain. And God only knows how many would-be pretenders are trying to do to me what I did to Montrose. I’ve stranded most of the problem cases up at the L2 fleet, but the Moon’s crawling with collateral fallout from the last few days: surviving Praetorians, rogue InfoCom agents, everyone who’s been dispossessed by the constant regime changes—”

“But this isn’t just about your staying out of the crosshairs of those who would take your place.”

Szilard says nothing.

“It’s also about getting ready for the next phase,” adds Haskell. “And thus your scavenger hunt.”

Szilard nods.

“Found much?” she asks.

He shrugs. “I’ve found enough. Old files of Harrison’s, captured Eurasian intel briefings, interrogation transcripts—it’s strange how much got scattered across more than twenty years. You’ve got something you want hidden, you put it out of reach, and yet that doesn’t mean it gets passed over forever. These days your data often has a longer lifespan than you do.”

“Sarmax’s hasn’t outlived him yet.”

“No,” says Szilard. He looks thoughtful. “And yet I think that man died inside many years back.”

“Because of Indigo Velasquez?”

“Indeed.”

“She’s still alive.”

“You assert that with such confidence.”

“Because I saw her.”

“Along with who else?”

“She’s part of Sinclair’s team up at L5.”

“And what about Sinclair’s team down here?”

Pause. “I’ve seen nothing.”

“You hesitate.”

“I was thinking it over,” she says.

“I think you’re only seeing what he wants you to see.”

“Possibly.”

“That’s his M.O., isn’t it? All the way from the start, right? He put you and Marlowe alongside each other to keep you preoccupied, keep you distracted while—”

“He’s not invincible. Look at how Morat played him—”

“And now Morat’s dead.”

“Maybe.”

Szilard cocks his head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Morat appeared to me when Montrose was interrogating me.”

Pause. “Montrose was using his image.”

“I’m not so sure,” she says. “His presence felt … real.”

“Well, of course it would—”

“And Sinclair appeared soon after, and he was real. That tank Montrose was holding me in had leaks. Maybe more than one. For all I know, Morat’s out there playing his own game. Or is back in the saddle with Sinclair—”

“But I thought you were the one to kill Morat.”

“I killed a robot. The original might have been elsewhere. Or somebody might have created more.”

“Well,” says Szilard, “one more reason for me to take my precautions.”

“It won’t save you.”

Szilard grins ruefully. “I doubt anyone thought I’d be the one to harness you either. Sinclair and Harrison cut me out of the loop from the start. They thought I was just one more nonentity. Harrison tried to take me out, and I took him instead. The Rain tried to play me, and I spaced their hit squad. Montrose tried to make me second fiddle, and now she’s a frozen husk. Because I do my homework, just like I’ve done with you. Everyone else just rushed in and got what they deserved. You’re something you don’t fuck with. You mind envelops anything that tries to control it. Your brain uses whatever tries to use you—you escalate automatically beyond the ability of any interrogator to reach. Montrose thought she’d cracked you, and all she’d done was undermine her own defenses.”

“What about Carson?”

“What about him?”

“Back on Harrison’s ship. He knew what he was doing—”

“Thought he did, sure. He had Sinclair’s backing, but Sinclair gave him only part of the data. The old man wasn’t stupid enough to allow your full powers into the hands of any of his minions. ’Cause suddenly the minion starts thinking they can be the master, right?”

“Just like you’re doing now.”

“And I’m not going into the lion’s den without some serious hardware. These last two days have been quite the journey, Claire. Quite the haul. The sequencing on your incubation. The diagrams of your mind’s metaprocesses, the way you run zone—I’ve got them now. I’ll be able to get past the hurdles that tripped up Montrose. All that’s left is one more step.”

“Assuming Sarmax comes through for you.”

“Let’s find out, shall we?”

Two marines step into the gazebo with them. The floor begins to descend.

A shudder passes through the shuttle as it docks with the dreadnaught Lexington. Exterior hatches swing open. Everybody gets up and starts heading for the exit—or nearly everybody, anyway. Five people stay behind. Maschler and Riley look befuddled. Everyone else looks amused. The pilot appears in the cockpit doorway.

“End of the line,” he says.

“Not for us,” says the Operative.

“What’s your problem?”

“Check your schedule,” says Lynx.

“I already did,” says the pilot.

“So check it again,” says the Operative. There’s something in his tone that makes the pilot do just that—accessing screens within his head—looking bemused—

“I don’t understand,” he says.

“Last-minute update,” says Lynx.

“You guys intel or something?”

“Something,” says the Operative.

“And we haven’t got all day,” says Linehan, getting out of his seat. He’s twice the size of the pilot. The pilot re-enters the cockpit, the door to that chamber starts to slide shut—

“You can leave that open,” says Lynx.

The door slides back open. The pilot works the controls. Exterior hatches shut; engines rumble into life as the shuttle pushes back once more. The Operative hears the one-on-one start up within his head.

“You’d better be right about this,” says Lynx.

“Shut the hell up,” says the Operative.

We’re between floors,” says Sarmax, echoing Jarvin.

“Let’s go,” says Spencer.

They move through a series of passages that aren’t on any of the ship’s blueprints they’d had access to previously. They see no other sign of life, no sign that anything’s been here since it got built. There’s that much dust. It reminds Spencer of all that nanotech back on the Europa Platform. He hopes he hasn’t signed on for a repeat performance. They reach a door that looks to be quite strong.

“You got the key?” asks Jarvin.

“I’d better,” says Spencer.

Turns out he does. They go through more, each one thicker than the last. Each time he finds he’s got the right access codes. Turns out the cockpit wasn’t the most secure area on the ship, because everyone knew where it was. But this—

“Everyone stand back,” says Spencer.

The last door slides open.

The gazebo floor-turned-elevator trundles downward. Shaft walls slide by. Szilard’s two bodyguards eye Haskell. Haskell eyes Szilard.

“Where are we going?” she asks.

“Don’t you know?”

“Pretend I don’t.”

“Can’t you see the future?”

“It’s a very clouded view.”

“That’s about to change.”

They descend through the ceiling of a room unlike any Haskell’s ever seen.

Way out near the edge of the L2 fleet is a medium-grade war-sat that was obsolete as of ten years ago. It’s nothing special. It sees very little traffic.

That’s the point.

“We don’t even have clearance,” says the pilot.

“You will in a second,” says the Operative. He and Lynx are doing their damndest to make sure of that. None of this was easy to find. Sometimes the best place to hide secrets is right out in the open. Sometimes all you need to do is knock …

“Got it,” says the pilot.

“Told you,” says the Operative.

A battered hangar opens to receive them.

Three men pile into a room. The door slides shut behind them. There are no other doors visible.

“Jesus Christ,” says Sarmax.

Dust is everywhere. The place looks like it’s never been used. The walls are made of a strange kind of metal. Each wall has a suit-sized alcove cut in its center. Each such alcove looks as if it’s meant to be stood in.

“Well,” says Spencer, “here we are.”

“And no one else on this ship knows about this?” Sarmax looks skeptical.

“If they do,” says Spencer, “they’re not talking.”

“They don’t,” says Jarvin. “This was the trump card of the Eurasian leadership. In case their ships slipped the leash.”

“They didn’t count on us, though.”

“Maybe they did,” says Sarmax.

“Let’s find out,” says Spencer.

Picture a square turned forty-five degrees. That’s what this room’s like—it’s set at angles. There’s no floor, just vast walls slanting down along diagonals to meet in a V-shape: a metal-lined groove that runs along the bottom of the room. There’s another such groove at the highest point of the room too—and a hole in the wall that rises up to meet that groove. The elevator-gazebo has just dropped through that hole, trundling along vertical rails down to the catwalks that crisscross here and there. A pillar is at the very center of the room, running from floor to ceiling.

“Quite a place,” says Haskell.

“Wait till we turn it on,” says Szilard.

They don’t waste time. Lynx switches the shuttle’s zone classification to undergoing maintenance; the Operative switches the war-sat’s maintenance schedule to ensure that they won’t be getting to the shuttle anytime soon.

“And what about me?” asks the pilot.

Linehan shoots him through the head. “Are we ready?” he asks.

“I think we are,” says the Operative.

The shuttle door opens.

Spencer’s sending out wireless signals at point-blank range. A panel unfolds from the wall, revealing a console.

“Aha,” says Sarmax

“What order are we going to try this in?” says Jarvin.

“All at once,” says Spencer.

This is the place Sarmax hid from Carson,” says Haskell.

“He hoped to use it again someday.”

“How’d you find out about it?”

“Would you believe he told me?”

The elevator stops. They’ve gone as far down as they can go. One of the marines leads the way onto the catwalk; the other follows Szilard and Haskell as they move toward the intersection of catwalks at the center.

“Actually,” says Haskell, “I would.”

If Sarmax thought it could be used as a tool against Carson, anything’s possible. And if this place does what she suspects it’s about to—

They move out into a deserted hangar. Equipment’s everywhere but nothing looks flyable. Or even useful, for that matter. This stuff is from a bygone era.

“We’re off the beaten track,” says Maschler.

“We’re going even farther,” says Lynx. “You ready, Strom?”

“Assuming Maschler and Riley are ready to run point,” says the Operative.

Maschler and Riley look at him. “Sure,” says Riley.

“What route?” says Maschler.

“We’ll tell you as we go,” says Lynx.

How does this work?” says Sarmax.

“You get in one of these alcoves,” says Spencer. “You first.”

“There’s something I need to do first,” says Spencer—starts working the console. The fact that it’s totally unintuitive matters not in the slightest when he’s already hacked the instruction manual—the manual that sat at the heart of the Kremlin for all that time, the one that Jarvin almost found. But not quite—and now Spencer’s the one who’s calling the shots. He keys in the last of the sequence. There’s a low rumbling hum. The alcoves light up, shimmer with a strange energy.

“Well don’t just stand there,” he says.

The pillar at the center of the room is a strange kind of metal Haskell can’t identify, without evidence of grooves or bolts. It looks more organic than mechanic. She’s got a funny feeling it’s made of the same substance as the rails that run along the floor and ceiling. She walks up to it.

“Don’t touch it,” says Szilard.

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing,” she says.

They head through corridors that look like they could use some maintenance. It’s mostly dark, save for their own sensors. They’re seeing no one. Maschler’s voice comes through on the group channel:

“What are you expecting?” he asks.

“Surprises,” says Lynx.

The men on point get the message. They shut up. For now, at any rate. They keep on cautiously leading the way, Lynx and Carson following, Linehan walking backward, bringing up the rear. He figures that if anything was following them, it probably would have made its move by now. But he doesn’t know for sure. He watches the passageway recede, hears Riley’s voice echo in his head:

“Lights. Up ahead.”

Spencer walks calmly into one of the flickering alcoves.

Jarvin does the same. Sarmax simply stands there.

“Move,” says Jarvin.

“Why?” says Sarmax.

“What the hell’s your problem?”

“You guys really think you’re going to pull this off?”

“Got an alternative?” says Spencer.

“Take over this ship,” replies Sarmax. “Drive it into deep space.”

“And do what?” asks Jarvin.

“Live in splendid isolation.”

“Without your precious Indigo?” says Spencer.

Sarmax stares at him.

“She’s still alive,” adds Spencer.

“How the fuck do you know that?”

“Better hurry if you want to find out.”

Sarmax walks into an alcove. There’s a blinding flash.

You do not want to turn this thing on,” says Haskell.

“It’s not a question of what I want,” says Szilard.

Haskell can see the president isn’t wasting any time. While he’s talking, he’s operating controls via wireless—she feels a low hum pass through her suit. Far overhead, the ceiling-rail starts flickering, along with the rail below. But nothing seems to be happening to the pillar. The humming intensifies.

“I’m begging you,” she says.

“You think I’m walking into Sarmax’s trap?”

“Try Sinclair’s.”

They’ve come through into an area of the war-sat that looks to be a lot better maintained. The lighting’s a lot more reliable. There’s an open door up ahead. Emanating from within is a noise that sounds a lot like someone’s fingers hitting a keyboard.

“Hmmm,” says Lynx.

“No shooting unless I say otherwise,” says the Operative.

“Now he tells us,” says Riley—gestures. Maschler moves through the doorway, guns at the ready.

The flash dies away. Spencer blinks, adjusts his vision. Looks at the alcove he’s in—at the room beyond that. It looks exactly the same as it did before. He feels like a jet engine just went through his head. Dust is everywhere. A lot of it looks like it just got blasted from the alcoves.

“What do you mean she’s still alive?” says Sarmax.

“I don’t think this worked,” says Jarvin.

Sinclair wants you to switch this on,” says Haskell.

“I’ll find a way to surprise him anyway.”

“You’ve got the coordinates?”

“Absolutely.”

“He’s way ahead of you, Jharek. Turn that on and God knows what will happen.”

“You know what they say about desperate times, Claire.”

The pillar’s starting to glow in a very weird way: some sort of greenish-blue. It starts to pervade the place, shadows running up and down over the walls. The two marines move in closer to Szilard.

They take the room like any good commando squad: those on point going through, moving out into the room in different directions, the rearguard suddenly charging past the guys in the middle and in after the point and—

“All clear,” says Linehan.

The Operative and Lynx move through. The room looks like any normal office. Fancy, though: wood panels along the walls and door opposite. Nice carpet underfoot. A well-appointed desk takes up most of one corner. A very attractive woman sits at it. She regards them calmly.

“Can I help you gentlemen?” she asks.

She’s not in armor—just civilian clothing. She looks so good she’s got to be genetically engineered. But it’s not her looks that are making the Operative nervous.

“We’re here to see Dr. Sorensen,” says the Operative.

“Are you nuts?” says Lynx, and shoots the woman in the chest.

They step out of the alcoves.

“You’d better answer my question,” says Sarmax, moving toward Spencer. Jarvin cuts in between them.

“Easy,” he says.

“You guys have been talking behind my back,” says Sarmax.

“Better get used to it,” says Spencer. “We’re the razors.”

“Where the hell’s my Indigo?”

“Where she’s always been,” says Jarvin.

“At Sinclair’s side,” says Spencer.

He’s counting on you doing this,” says Haskell. “Just not so soon,” replies Szilard. The pillar is now blazing so bright they’re having to adjust the shades on their visors. Haskell’s watching everything get just a little darker. She realizes the equipment has reached activation frequency.

“It’s too early,” she says.

“You mean this doesn’t appear in any of your visions?”

She nods. He laughs. “Such a shame,” he says. “So sorry to disappoint you. But in truth, nothing’s written.”

There’s a blinding flash.

The woman’s blown backward out of her chair. She drops behind the desk.

“Suck it,” says Lynx.

“What the fuck’s your problem?” says the Operative.

“Let’s go see the doctor—shit!”

The woman’s coming up from behind the desk with a carbine, spraying explosive rounds. Lynx fires his suit-jets, leaps to one side and unloads on full-auto, unleashing in tandem with the four other men. Now the woman’s taking damage. Bullets slice through her flesh, starting to reveal the metal chassis underneath. The Operative tosses a grenade at the woman’s feet. It detonates, taking half the room with it.

How am I supposed to reach her?” says Sarmax.

“She’s within a klick of us,” says Spencer.

“But like Jarvin said—this didn’t work,” says Sarmax.

“I’ve changed my mind,” says Jarvin.

The flash subsides. The room looks the same as it did before. Szilard looks puzzled.

“We haven’t moved,” he says.

“We weren’t supposed to,” says Haskell.

“This didn’t work?”

“Depends what you mean by ‘work,’” says a voice.

The room’s a shambles. So is the secretary-android. Smoke’s everywhere. The opposite door’s been blown down. Lynx is already moving through it. The Operative turns to the other three men.

“You guys stay here,” he says. “Set up a perimeter.”

“Perimeter?” asks Linehan.

“This room is the only way to reach what lies beyond it.”

“How long will you be?”

“Depends on how many questions you’ve got.”

Linehan mock-salutes. The Operative moves after Lynx.

You’re saying we just—?” asks Sarmax.

“More than just saying,” says Spencer.

“Welcome to the Righteous Fire-Dragon,” says Jarvin.

“Jesus,” says Sarmax. He checks his suit readouts—they all check out. “Is this me?”

“Who else would it be?” asks Jarvin.

“Say hi to the new you,” says Spencer.

“What happened to the old one?”

“Nothing good.”

“Fuck,” says Sarmax.

“And you might have lost a thing or two along the way.”

“What the hell do you mean?”

“No such thing as quantum cloning,” says Spencer. “Something always gets lost in the shuffle.”

“You’re saying we should check our memories?” says Sarmax. “Like they weren’t suspect enough—”

“He’s saying don’t be surprised if you start bleeding out,” says Jarvin. “We’re just going to have to see how this plays out, huh.”

Spencer nods. “Terra incognita for sure.”

“Teleportation’s real,” mutters Sarmax.

“Real question is who else knows it,” says Jarvin.

She’s been thinking in that direction for a while now. After all, Sinclair’s been fucking with the space-time continuum. Once you’ve sent messages back from the future, bypassing space isn’t so far beyond the pale. But now she’s face to face with it. Because everyone in this chamber’s whirling. Standing on one end of the catwalk is a figure wearing what looks to be a seriously sophisticated suit of powered-armor.

“Who the hell are you?” asks Szilard.

“The person who’s going to kick your ass,” says the figure—right before it starts firing.

The Operative and Lynx move through into what looks to be a standard office complex, though all the offices on either side are empty. Their sensors are cranked—they’re looking for anything with a heat source.

“You really think he’s here?” asks Lynx.

“Bastard never goes anywhere without that bitch of his.”

They start getting ready to move out. Spencer does a quick scan on the zone around him. Sarmax keeps going on about teleportation.

“I’m still trying to get my head around this,” says Sarmax. “The amount of computational power needed—the amount of energy—you’re talking about something that’s—”

“Off the charts,” says Spencer. “But just so we’re all on the same page, spare us all and stop playing stupid.”

“Who says I’m playing stupid?”

“You know all about these fucking devices.”

“I don’t know if I’d go that far.”

“Heard about them, then.”

“Okay,” says Sarmax, “so I’ve heard about them—”

“In your goddamn basement,” says Jarvin.

Flame streaks across the room. Szilard’s two bodyguards leap in front of him, taking the shots. One of them takes a few too many. His suit starts burning. Szilard’s grabbing at Haskell—but she’s leapt from the catwalk, finds herself tumbling down in low-gravity toward the rail beneath. The figure advances on Szilard’s remaining bodyguard, who closes rapidly, firing all his weapons. Szilard comes to a quick decision—he ignites his suit-jets and blasts upward toward the elevator shaft.

They’ve left the offices behind and have come to what looks more like a lab-complex. Equipment’s everywhere, gleaming like it’s seen recent use. Standing in one corner is a man who looks at them like he expected this all along.

So I had one in my cellars,” says Sarmax. “So what?

Didn’t mean I ever switched the fucking thing on.

Problem with having a teleporter is—”

“Not enough to have just one,” says Jarvin.

“Got to know the location of the others,” mutters Spencer.

“If you don’t, having only one is worse than useless,” says Sarmax. “Never know when something just fucking manifests—”

“That’s what the Praesidium intended to do if rogue elements got ahold of these megaships,” says Jarvin. “They could just beam in commandos and—”

“So could the Rain,” says Spencer.

Jarvin laughs. “The Coalition’s has been played. If they have these devices, it’s only because the Rain wanted it that way.”

Spencer looks at Sarmax. “Who installed yours?”

“That’d be Sinclair,” says Sarmax.

“Let’s trash this place,” says Jarvin.

Szilard shoots into the shaft and disappears from sight. His second bodyguard fights on for about two more seconds before getting torn apart. The newcomer vaults over the catwalk, fires its jets, speeds down toward Haskell. She’s still falling, picking up speed. The figure catches up to her just before she hits the bottom.

You’re well off the beaten path,” says the man.

He looks pretty old. His beard’s gone almost white.

His face is wizened, but his eyes are bright. He smiles like he’s trying to cover up how scared he is.

“Where the fuck is it?” demands Lynx.

Destroying the teleportation chamber isn’t a no-brainer. Once it’s done, they can no longer get out. But the only place they can escape to is the ship they came from. And the risks of anyone else catching up with them using the same technology is just too great. A few silenced rounds of ammo and some good old-fashioned battering with their fists, and the room may as well have just been bombed.

“Nothing like burning bridges,” says Jarvin.

“Let’s go,” says Spencer.

The ship’s zone clicks in around him.

Haskell feels herself seized by gloved fists; she watches walls rush by as the suited figure fires its jets, hauls her back up, and dumps her unceremoniously onto the catwalk. The shattered bodies of Szilard’s bodyguards lie nearby. The president’s nowhere to be seen.

“He’ll be back any moment,” says the interloper.

Where’s what?” asks the old man.

“Where the fuck is the telepor—”

“Let me handle this,” the Operative says to Lynx on the one-on-one. He opens up the channel again: “You’re Dr. Arthur Sorenson.”

“Is that a question?” says the man.

“More like confirmation,” says Lynx. “We’ve already got your résumé.”

Sorenson looks at him a little strangely. “Which résumé?”

“That’d be the real one.”

They leave the wrecked equipment behind, head out through passages that look familiar. An identical set of doors as on the Hammer of the Skies, only this time they’re going the other way. Spencer feels like he’s retracing his footsteps. It’s strange to think he isn’t. In short order they reach the elevator shaft—between floors, same as before. An elevator car’s just arriving for them.

Who the fuck are you?” says Haskell.

“A secret admirer.”

“With access to the teleport machines—”

“Narrows it down, doesn’t it?”

“Goddammit, who—”

“First things first.”

It all happened so long ago,” says Sorenson.

“May as well have been yesterday,” says Lynx.

“At least tell me which ones you are.”

“Originals,” says the Operative.

Sorenson’s eyes narrow. “Where’s the third?”

“We’re asking the questions,” says Lynx.

“So how about you give us a guided tour,” says the Operative.

The elevator hurtles toward the rear of the ship.

“Which is where Sinclair is,” says Sarmax.

“You got it,” says Jarvin.

“And Indigo’s a prisoner too?”

“They may not be prisoners,” says Spencer.

The figure leans forward, unlocks the restraints on Haskell’s suit in one fluid motion, and beams her data. Haskell realizes they’re coordinates—that the figure is giving her directions. Only—

“These aren’t for the portal,” she says.

“Because it doesn’t lead to where you need to go.”

“Szilard thought it led to the—”

“He was wrong. Use the map I just gave you; Sarmax’s own back door. Eighty klicks south to Shackleton. To the South Pole.” A pause. “You know about the South Pole?”

“I’ve known all along.”

“Then you know what lies beyond it.”

“South of every south,” says Haskell.

They look at each other.

“And you?” she adds.

“I’m going back the way I came. To run some more errands. Which starts with blowing this equipment behind me.” The figure tosses plastique, starts to turn—

“Are you Matthew Sinclair?” asks Haskell.

The figure says nothing, just starts up the machinery, surging jets and heading in toward it. Haskell’s eyes narrow.

“Morat?”

A laugh: “Not even vaguely.”

You want me to show you around?” asks Sorenson.

“Don’t make me ask twice,” says the Operative.

“No need. But there’s no teleportation device here.” Lynx laughs. “Do you want to die, old man?”

“I dream of it every day,” says Sorenson.

They may be running a takeover sequence,” says Jarvin

“They may be running this place already,” says Spencer.

“Only one way to find out,” says Sarmax.

The elevator comes to a halt. The doors open.

Haskell watches a door slide open in the pillar, watches the figure step toward it—and turn back toward her one more time. She hears the voice echo in her helmet.

“Go,” it says.

She fires her suit-jets.

They follow Sorenson back into the rest of his labs. The Operative’s keeping him in his crosshairs the whole way. He’s got no idea what the guy might try. All he knows is that this is a man who’s been on the run for a long time—who knows all the tricks. That’s how he was able to seclude himself in the backwaters of SpaceCom—just another weapons laboratory among so many, this one producing something on paper and somehow never quite being called upon to produce it for real. None of which mattered when the funding kept on arriving and all inquiries got led down false trails. But every reckoning comes eventually.

They move through more corridors. Spencer’s checking out zone-grids. Righteous Fire-Dragon turns out to be a very different proposition from its sister ship. It’s a lot more complex. The cockpit’s even better defended than on Hammer of the Skies. The ship’s executive node is far more formidable. But Spencer’s mind is sifting through it all the same. His new zone techniques put the old ones to shame. He and Jarvin triangulate on the area of the ship that’s been turned into a prison. They’re plotting their route in. But that route includes one preliminary stop—one they’ve almost reached. They prime their weapons.

She’s roaring through more tunnels, and her mind’s awhirl with a million thoughts. She’s got a very narrow window on the zone now, too—the microzone contained within this tunnel. She can see the pursuit boiling in behind her. Szilard’s marshaling the rest of his force. He’s coming after her with the most elite marines SpaceCom can muster. He knows if he doesn’t take her back he’s meat. She feels the rock around her shake as though a large explosive just detonated. She can guess what just blew. She wonders how the hell Sarmax acquired it in the first place—wonders if he even knew it was there. Her thoughts are racing—Szilard didn’t seem to realize what he was dealing with, thought this was the gateway to Sinclair’s true fortress—that he could get there before the old man himself showed up. But he ended up getting punked. Haskell’s wondering whether maybe she did, too. She’s still doing analysis on the nature of the device she was just face to face with—the radiations it emitted, the energies it was accessing. She reaches the end of a tunnel, drops through a trapdoor—sees what she’s been told was there, starts its motors before she’s even reached it.

They come through into the rear areas of the lab and reach another door. It’s got several seals on it.

“We need to put on special suits to proceed,” says Sorenson.

“We’re dressed just fine,” says the Operative.

Sorenson glances back at the Operative’s armor. “At least let me—”

“Fat chance,” says Lynx. He rips off the seals, yanks open the door and—

“Shit,” he says.

They’re into some of the more restricted areas aboard the Righteous Fire-Dragon.

They’re still seeing no one. They transition from passageways to shafts, quickly crawl down them, smash through a grille—and drop down into a room.

That room contains three Chinese soldiers in powered armor. They’re still alive, but only just. Their armor’s malfunctioning about as badly as Spencer’s been intending it. Same as it ever was: once you get the high ground on the zone you can wreak havoc on everything below it. Spencer and Jarvin mesh minds and catch what’s left of their targets in a death grip. The suits go haywire, electrocuting the men within them.

Sarmax climbs into the room and stares at the bodies.

“What have we here?” he asks.

“The key to Sinclair’s cell,” says Spencer.

More like a missile than a vehicle: it’s a state-of-the-art maglev minicar, already starting to sling itself down the tracks toward the tunnel at the far end of the room. Haskell adjusts her thrusters, matches speeds—drops down into the single seat, straps herself in as the canopy lowers and the car accelerates. She catches a glimpse of suits pouring into the room behind her, but then rounds a bend in the tunnel.

Should have guessed it,” says the Operative.

The room contains twenty transluscent cryo-units.

Each one’s occupied. Half are male, half are female.

“And none of them are human,” says Lynx.

“They’re Rain,” says the Operative.

Sorenson says nothing.

“Never mind the Rain,” says Lynx on the one-on-one. “We need to find his goddamn teleporter.”

“He told you already,” says the Operative. “He ain’t got one.”

“And you believe him?”

“It was always a longshot. His expertise never extended to that kind of stuff anyway.”

“So how the fuck are we getting off this fucking fleet?”

“The old-fashioned way,” says the Operative.

Who the fuck were these guys?” asks Sarmax.

“Us,” says Spencer.

“You mean now we’re them.”

“I always was,” says Jarvin.

Sarmax frowns. “What the fuck are you on about?”

Jarvin kicks one of the Chinese soldiers with his boot. Sarmax can’t help but notice the major’s insignia on the shoulder of the dead man’s armor. And suddenly it all clicks—

“My counterpart,” says Jarvin.

“Oh,” says Sarmax.

“Yeah.”

“You were sent by the Praesidium as one of the two interrogators of Matthew Sinclair. Took the place of the Russian one—”

“Who would have died anyway when the Chinese purged them,” says Spencer.

“Maybe,” says Jarvin. “Maybe not. Who cares? The point is, now he’s dead. And so is this one. And we’ve got their codes.”

“So let’s go say hi to the head of CICom,” says Spencer.

Haskell accelerates, pouring on the speed. But she still can’t get access to the larger zone—just a mere fraction of it, a tiny thread that represents this rail line. Obstensibly, this particular tunnel is a component of Sarmax’s ice-processing operation, eighty klicks north of Shackleton. Only now it’s more like sixty klicks. Haskell’s feeling okay about keeping the pursuit behind her for the next few minutes. It’s what’s in front of her that’s got her worried.

So what exactly was your plan?” asks the Operative.

Sorenson laughs. “Who says I had a plan?”

“This flesh,” says Lynx, gesturing at the cryo-tanks.

Though right now that flesh isn’t saying much of anything. It’s just sitting there, all life systems reduced to an absolute minimum. The Operative can’t read anything in those faces. But he can see a thing or two in Lynx’s. He opens up the one-on-one again.

“What the hell’s on your mind?” he says.

“The colony ships,” Lynx replies.

“What about them?”

“They’re full of sleepers.”

“That’s why they call them colony ships, Lynx.”

“The ships are a subterfuge. Why not the cargo?”

The Operative addresses Sorenson: “What about the colony ships?”

“Mostly just colonists.”

“But not exclusively.”

“There are a few anomalies here and there.”

“Made by who?”—but even as he asks the question, the Operative realizes its absurdity. Everyone’s been trying to duplicate the Autumn Rain batch ever since it came out of the vat. Every player’s got their own breed of posthuman in the mix. Szilard’s undoubtedly been working his own angles. But no one’s ever been able to attain the breakthroughs that Matthew Sinclair made two decades back. Nobody’s come close to replicating them. Partially that’s because he executed all the scientists.

Except for one.

“I never had the big picture,” mutters Sorenson.

“Who the hell did?” says the Operative.

“That’d be you,” says Lynx.

Flanked by his escorts, the man who’s been charged by the Praesidium with interrogating the most important asset to ever fall into the Coalition’s hands is approaching the section of the Righteous Fire-Dragon that’s been designated as maximum security. All prisoners taken from the L5 fortress have been moved there. There weren’t that many. Most of the garrison was killed subsequent to surrender. But there were a few exceptions …

“He’s in there, alright,” says Spencer.

“At least officially,” says Jarvin.

“And where the hell’s Indigo?” asks Sarmax.

“Right here,” says Spencer—beams the map over to him, showing the holding cells and their denizens. There are only five: Sinclair, and four of the soldiers who were guarding him. And Spencer’s fairly sure not all of those soldiers are who they seem to be.

“When they took the libration point, the Eurasians killed everybody,” says Spencer. “A total massacre. They knew what they were up against. They knew that Sinclair wasn’t an ordinary prisoner, that the Rain might have infected L5. That’s why they took no chances—why the only exceptions were quarantined and put into lockdown—why the only ones getting into this cell-block are—”

“Us,” says Sarmax.

They turn a corner. Guards block the way ahead.

You’re barking up the wrong tree,” says the Operative. “Sinclair kept the whole thing compartmentalized. And only he had insight into the specifics of the core quantum processes—”

“Along with the physicists,” says Sorenson.

“Who were the first to go,” says the Operative.

“Because you killed them,” says Lynx.

“On Sinclair’s orders.”

“But not before you made them talk.”

“Let me assure you that Sinclair had already deprived them of that ability.”

“I was a fucking biogeneticist,” says Sorenson. “I’d heard the stories, sure—of what was really going on at the center of his fucking Manhattan Project. Of tapping into nonlocalized consciousness to tune the mind as a neurotransmitter. Of—”

“Telepathy,” says Lynx.

“—leveraging quantum entanglement to enable remote duplication of matter.”

“Teleportation,” says the Operative.

He and Sorenson look at each other.

“And?” asks the Operative.

Sorenson looks as if he’s about to weep. Lynx looks at the Operative.

“What do you mean, and?”

“You know what I mean,” says the Operative to Sorenson. Sorenson closes his eyes.

“Say it,” says the Operative.

“Something to do with time,” whispers Sorenson.

Careening through a hollow tube beneath the lunar mountains: Haskell’s halfway to Shackleton, and she can only imagine what she’s going to find when she gets there. She feels the South Pole beckoning beyond it—feels it with an intensity that makes the antipodes at the Europa Platform look like the artificial constructs they were. Her awareness is cranking up to new heights. And all the while she’s doing her utmost to dissect the nature of the machinery fading behind her.

Sinclair could see the future,” says Lynx.

“So could the Manilishi,” says Sorenson.

“Only Sinclair’s ability trumped Haskell’s,” says the Operative. “She just had it in flashes. Sinclair’s view was a little more comprehensive, wasn’t it?”

Sorenson shrugs. “But the Manilishi was able to deploy hacks—”

“Don’t play the retard,” snaps the Operative. “This isn’t just about precognition, is it?”

“No,” whispers Sorenson.

For a moment there’s silence. Lynx whistles.

“Fuck,” he says, “if Sinclair can violate causality wholesale—”

“Then we’d know it,” says the Operative. “We’d have already lost.”

“And if one of those teleporters wasn’t really a teleporter,” says Lynx. “And if it got switched on—”

“Like I said,” says the Operative, “we’d know it.”

Running scans, checking readouts: it’s somehow only just beginning to dawn on her that she really is on the Moon—that she’s reached the object that she and Jason set out for so long ago. She feels like she’s stabbed him in the back by arriving up here without him—feels like she’s betrayed him repeatedly ever since. And somehow feels him too, like he’s somewhere out there even now. As if anything’s possible. She watches walls streak past. Shackleton’s drawing ever closer.

Time machines,” says Sorenson. “He was trying to develop time mach—”

“Is,” mutters Lynx. “We need to move—”

“I get that,” says the Operative. He shoves his guns up against Sorenson’s face. “Too bad this goddamn hunk of metal where you and that blowup-bitch of yours have been holed up contains not a single portal of any use whatsoever.”

“God help me it’s true,” says Sorenson. He’s cowering like he knows he’s about to get it any moment—

“And you don’t even know the details of the fucking recipe to cook up some Rain,” says Lynx. “So what the fuck have you been growing here?”

“My best effort,” snaps Sorenson.

“And you were going to activate them when?”

“I figured to use them as a bargaining chip instead.”

“You’ve signed your own death warrant, old man.”

“That happened long ago.”

“You may yet avoid it,” says the Operative.

Sorenson looks at him. “What do you want me to do?”

“Wake them up, of course.”

Visors can be deceptive. Sometimes the screens that they project can face the other way. These three show Han Chinese faces. But on the inside it’s a different story …

“Special agent Zhou Tang,” says the man who’s not. “Here to interrogate the prisoner, at the express instruction of the Praesidium.”

IDs flow up and down the ladders of command. The word comes back. A sentry signals. The door opens—to reveal a second barricade. More sentries step forward.

You can’t be serious,” says Sorenson.

“I never joke,” says the Operative.

He and Lynx have already gotten busy siphoning off all the data—the schematics on this particular batch of would-be superwarriors; the records Sorenson’s kept of his long stealth burn through the glacial layers of the SpaceCom bureaucracy; the tantalizing fragments from all the years before that. He snatches at files with timestamps from the 2080s. Data fills him up till he feels like he could burst. He looks at Sorenson.

“So fire it up,” he says.

Sorenson starts warming up the brain-farm.

She’s coming in on Shackleton like a bomb now, and she still can’t break through to the larger zone beyond. It’s just not happening. She almost wonders if she’s been damaged irreparably by everything that’s gone down. But her mind feels anything but damaged. It feels like it’s burning out in all directions. She’s bringing new insight to the situation at hand. She’s now almost certain that machine was a teleporter—and only that. None of her readouts show a trace of tachyons. Meaning that figure wasn’t from the future. Whoever it was is from the present. Maybe even from somewhere else on the Moon. But within the zone itself, Haskell’s still confined to this tunnel, blocked off at both ends—and even that perspective’s shrinking as someone pulls the plug on the maglev. She wonders why they didn’t do it earlier—maybe they figured there’s no point, because now she’s switching to rockets—she barrels forward toward her destination—

Cryo-machines hum. Life-support systems chirp.

Flesh is waking up.

“How much longer?” says the Operative.

“Only a couple more minutes,” says Sorenson.

“And how soon will they be ready for combat?”

“Within the hour.”

“Might need to cut some corners,” says the Operative.

The guards of the second perimeter put them through the paces. Codes, backup codes, failsafes, voice recognition … but Spencer is sufficiently high up in the Eurasian zone that he’s got all the answers. Or at least he’s able to make like he does—he still can’t penetrate the Praesidium itself, but he can fool it into thinking he’s carrying out the orders. The second set of doors slide away—reveal the third and last dead ahead.

She’s heading into the outskirts of Shackleton, and she still can’t reach the zone. She can only assume that’s because there’s no direct link to it from this tunnel she’s in—a tunnel that’s suddenly starting to widen, joining up with other tunnels. Sarmax’s infrastructure is giving way to the infrastructure of the whole city. It spreads out before her.

Almost there,” says Lynx.

The Operative says nothing. He’s lost in the faces of the waking sleepers. They look so familiar. There’s one woman in particular that he feels like he’s seen before. Probably because the face isn’t dissimilar to Claire’s. He can only imagine where she is now. He wonders just how good this batch will be. Not quite up to the stuff of the originals, but maybe that’s just as well. He watches the seconds slide by, gets ready to start giving orders.

The codes are running. The sentries who guard the last door are waiting for the results. Spencer feels like he’s reached the threshold. Sarmax’s suit-monitors show his pulse accelerating to dangerous levels. Spencer wonders whether he’s going to give them all away. It’s just a few more meters to the man who tried to turn this whole game inside out—the man who may yet be running the whole thing. He feels that power’s within his grasp. He lets the zone-bubble he’s created slide in around them. The doors open—

Like slalom on acid: Haskell starts weaving her way into the tunnel-network around Shackleton. She’s dodging past other trains, stations, freight. Sirens are sounding. Klaxons are howling. Apparently the garrison is finally waking up. But she’s still detecting no zone presence.

And suddenly she gets it: they’ve switched it off altogether. Contingency planning—faced with the likes of her, they’ve gone to communicating purely by analog line and loudspeaker. But mobilizing under those kind of conditions is anything but easy. She’s eating up the klicks, rising through levels, closing on the heart of the city. Even as she feels something closing in on her …

We’re going to need to get them some weapons,” says Lynx.

“They’re the weapons,” says the Operative.

And equipping them will be the least of his problems. This war-sat contains enough shit to blow up a small asteroid anyway. Redundancy has its advantages. Same with these twenty men and women. They’ll be the firepower needed to initiate the next phase—the ticket back to the Moon. Sorenson’s files are going to be helpful, too. The Operative glances at the scientist and wonders if there might actually be some use in keeping him alive. The eyelids of some of the sleepers are starting to flicker.

A repurposed storage chamber: the walls look like they’ve been seriously reinforced. The center is dominated by a squat structure that stretches almost to the ceiling.

“Huh,” says Spencer.

It’s a box—a room all its own. It’s been custom built for a single purpose. A single door’s visible, along with a window next to it. The three men move forward as the hatches through which they’ve entered slide shut behind them.

She rockets through the basements of Shackleton. All the maglev is out, as is the rest of the electricity. It’s all a scorched-earth strategy to slow her down. The SpaceCom garrison is taking up positions. She can’t see it, but she can sense it—and the fact that nearly all of their defense sequences were prepped to deal with attacks from without makes it difficult to scramble to meet an incursion from within. Particularly since all Haskell’s really concerned about is getting out herself. She swerves back onto a set of passenger rails. Raw contingency hits her like a wave. A face starts boiling up inside her mind.

The Operative wills himself to remain calm. The last thing he wants is to sit here and wait while these things wake up. Particularly when everything around him is coming to a head. The Eurasians might start their final attack at any moment. The endgame could kick off anytime. The eyes of the sleeper nearest to him open.

Spencer looks in the window. Sitting cross-legged against the wall opposite them is Matthew Sinclair. Unsuited, his eyes closed. Four people are chained adjacent to him. They wear Praetorian colors. Three are very clearly dead. Blood’s dripping from their ears and noses.

The fifth looks fine. Her face isn’t one that Spencer recognizes. But it seems like Sarmax does. He’s obviously struggling to control himself.

“Steady,” says Spencer.

Sinclair’s eyes open.

She’s transfixed—can’t turn away. The old man’s surging into her head like some tide she can’t withstand. She’s not sure why she ever wanted to. Her mind collapses in upon itself like some kind of sinkhole, yet the deeper it goes the more acute her insight gets. Tunnel blasts past her while she maneuvers through the Com forces with near-perfect precision. They’re still hoping to trap her and take her alive—and she’s only got a few more seconds before they realize that’s just not going to be possible. But anything can happen in those seconds. Particularly inside the endless reaches of her head. The jaws of Sinclair open to receive her.

The Operative can’t take his eyes off that woman—the one who resembles Claire. It isn’t her, of course. It’s not even a clone. But he can barely look away. It’s like watching someone being born. He feels the eyes of the others upon him now—feels himself caught up in a vortex of his own making. He wonders what happened to the old Carson—the one who never made mistakes, who always forced others to pay for theirs. He wonders what his motives for all this really are. The woman’s mouth is forming soundless words.

Spencer’s trying to keep his mind focused. The eyes of Sinclair are like pits into which he’s tumbling. He’s fighting to pull himself away. He’s conscious of almost nothing else.

Except for Sarmax.

“Easy,” Spencer says again.

“Shit,” says Jarvin—but Sarmax is already igniting his las-knife, slashing through the seals on the cell door.

The SpaceCom forces are giving up on trying to capture her. They’re opening fire—but she’s firing first, unleashing a rack of torpedoes, then calibrating her own route to steer in amidst the blasts detonating throughout the labyrinth of Shackleton. And Sinclair’s riding her mind as she rides the tunnels—she shoots out through one of the larger caves—gets a quick glimpse of buildings all around—and then she’s back into the narrower passages as she closes in on the far side of the city. The very edge—she’s roaring in toward it as Sinclair forges in toward the center of her awareness. He seems to be looking for something. She’s terrified he’s about to find it. She pivots within herself—

Carson,” whispers the woman.

The Operative isn’t surprised. It’s as though he’s been here before. It’s as though all this is memory in reverse. He tries to speak—succeeds—

I’m here,” he says.

The roar of autofire suddenly fills the room.

As Sarmax practically rips the door from its hinges, Spencer realizes that the man has shut down the zone-conduits for his armor.

“Stop him,” yells Jarvin.

But Sarmax is already firing.

She’s wrestling with the old man for what’s left of her sanity—all the while racing out of the transport-tunnels and into corridors intended for personnel, rushing in through the last streets of the city toward the city-wall. She’s almost there. The SpaceCom forces are falling back before her, waiting for her to slow down—waiting for her to turn. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that she’s not going to. She fires her last rack of torpedoes.

Lead’s flying everywhere, along with thousands of fléchette rounds. It’s all light stuff. It’s all bouncing off Lynx and the Operative as they whirl to face the shooter who’s standing in the doorway. Sorenson hits the deck, but the sleepers are getting diced. Flesh sprays the walls.

Sarmax opens up with his suit’s flamer, spraying liquid fire over all those within the room. Flame engulfs the chamber, surging back over him like some fiery tide.

Explosions half blind her, but Haskell’s firing the craft’s afterburners anyway, crashing through the SpaceCom barricades, blasting through the hole in the city-wall that her torpedoes just carved, shredding through the face of Matthew Sinclair as she shoots out into open space—

Linehan ceases firing. Smoke’s everywhere.

“Fuck you both,” he says.

“You’re dead,” says the Operative.

“And you’re fucking crazy!” yells Linehan. “Where the fuck do you get off on waking up minions who will try to turn you into fucking meat? You want to bring more Rain into the mix? You have fucking lost it, man, and you can—”

“He’s right,” says Lynx.

It’s inferno. It’s all Spencer can do to sever the smoke alarms and shut down the fire detection system—but he lets the sprinklers go into action, hurling water everywhere. Smoke belches in gouts from the cell-chamber. Jarvin grabs Sarmax—who seizes him in turn. But before either can strike the first blow—

“We’ve got bigger problems,” says Spencer.

And it doesn’t get any bigger than this. Shackleton is on the slopes of the South Pole basin—one of the largest impact craters in the solar system, more than ten klicks deep, a massive complex of sloping walls and cliffs and darkness. Haskell cuts the afterburners, damps the rockets, and lets the craft arc down like it’s a particle of light drawn into some black hole. She sees mountains towering above her—catches a glimpse of Malapert’s fiery peak presiding over all of it. But that view is nothing compared to the zone. Now that she’s gotten past sublunar Shackleton’s shut-down networks, she’s got access to wireless; it pours over her like a million waterfalls, giving her the leverage she needs to sweep away the last fragments of Sinclair as she plunges in toward nadir.

The Operative takes it all in—the shredded bodies, the acrid smoke, Sorenson huddled weeping in a corner.

Linehan pulls off his helmet.

“I’ll make it easy for you,” he sneers.

“Put that back on,” says Lynx—and on the one-on-one to Carson: “This is the part where you get a grip.”

“He killed them.”

“He did us a favor.”

“You really believe that.”

“Who knows what compulsions those things were saddled with?”

“By Sorenson? He’s nothing—”

“By Sinclair.”

That wasn’t her,” says Spencer. “Wasn’t him—”

“That’s why I killed them,” says Sarmax.

“That’s why you’re crazy.”

“Not at all,” says Sarmax. “That was one of Sinclair’s amplifiers—”

“We need to get out of here,” Jarvin says.

She’s picking up speed now—just missing a rocky overhang—tumbling past walls of cliffs while her mind ascends through the lunar satellites and out into the American zone, paralyzing all weaponry that’s aimed at her. She’s like a thousand-eyed insect now, seeing everything, in every direction—the lunar defenses ready for anything, the L2 fleet standing by behind the Moon, the vast Eurasian armadas gathered at L4 and L5. She feels at one with all of it; adjusting her rockets, she drops in toward the very center of the South Pole’s maw.

You don’t know that for sure,” says the Operative.

“That’s the point,” says Lynx. “The man just delivered us from temptation—”

“And how the fuck are we getting off this goddamn fleet now? Without that firepower—”

“By making do with what we have.”

“Meaning we have to let the motherfucker live.”

Lynx nods. “But if you got to have an outlet—”

“Thanks,” says the Operative—smashes an armored first through Sorenson’s skull.

Full triad,” confirms Spencer. “Closing.”

“What the hell’s going on?” says Sarmax.

“This was a Rain trap,” says Jarvin, tossing a shape-charge against the entryway hatch.

A whole world plunges past her. Mining installations sprout off from cliffs like limpet growths; bulldozers parked on the edge of nothing; ramps that lead down to nowhere. She’s dropping below the level of the sun, dropping into darkness, though the contours of the crater echo loud and clear within her head—she sees the view from the satellites overhead, triangulates along a grid as she keeps on falling …

What’s left of Sorenson’s head slides down the wall, the rest of his body crumpling with it. The Operative looks at Linehan.

“Should have been you,” he says.

“So work on your aim.”

The Operative opens his mouth to reply—and closes it again as sirens begin wailing at full volume.

The hatch disappears in a sheet of flame—the three men charge through, firing while the microbombs they’d planted back at the second and first doors detonate. Sentries go flying. Those who aren’t are facing the wrong way anyway—the three men gun them down as they roar through, desperate to get out of the cul-de-sac and gain some maneuvering room in the face of an onrushing Rain triad.

“Almost there,” says Spencer.

The engines of the Eurasian fleet ignite.

Like a myriad of fireflies: Haskell takes in the sprawling clusters of heat-signatures out at L5 and L4, as the Eurasian guns start laying down the mother of all bombardments. Suddenly DE is blanketing vacuum—intensifying even further as the American forces return fire. There’s so much energy out there that Haskell’s losing her wireless links with the U.S. zone. It’s like her fingers are getting pried away from some edge. But right now it doesn’t matter. She fires her vehicle’s retrorockets, powers into the caves within.

Alarms are howling. Klaxons are wailing. Suddenly three men are feeling way too exposed.

“They’ve found us,” says Linehan.

“Worse,” says Lynx. “That’s the general fleet alert.”

“The East is on its way,” says the Operative.

A quick glance on the zone confirms it. And the American fleet behind the Moon is going into ultra-lockdown mode—

“We need to get out of here,” says Linehan.

“Thanks for the newsflash,” says the Operative. He opens up the one-on-one with Lynx.

“Is this for real? Looks like they just—”

“Sealed all ships,” says Lynx. “Yeah.”

Meaning it’s no longer just a matter of nothing being allowed to leave this fleet. Now the same rule’s being applied to each individual ship. Total paranoia is in ascendancy. All intrafleet transport is at an end. Which means that—

“We’re fucked,” says Lynx.

“Not at all,” says the Operative.

“We’re fucked,” repeats Lynx, “and it’s all thanks to you. This whole Sorenson bullshit was a bridge too far. We’d already gotten all we needed these last two days—”

“We thought he might have a teleporter, remember?”

“So what the fuck are we gonna do now?”

“Show everybody why we’re the best in the business.”

Righteous Fire-Dragon is accelerating at a disturbing rate, moving well out ahead of the rest of the fleet, taking heavy fire from the American lunar positions. But all of that is mere background to what’s front and center on Spencer’s screen: only a few corridors away, the Rain triad is less than fifty meters ahead, steaming straight at them, operating on some kind of zone that’s in a class of its own. Spencer’s only detecting it because he’s using Rain protocols. But as to staying competitive with its—

“We can’t fight this,” says Jarvin.

“We’re not going to,” says Spencer. He meshes his mind with Jarvin, gets his zone-shields up just in time to repel an incoming blow that would have fried the mind of any normal razor. As he does so, he lets the blueprints of this part of the ship whip through his head. Looking for—

“Anything,” hisses Jarvin. “No time for perfection.”

“Then you’re gonna love this,” snarls Spencer.