“Penthouse suite,” he says.
“The Citadel,” replies the pilot.
“The what?”
“You don’t know what the Citadel is?”
“Maybe I’m just testing you.”
“Test away, asshole. I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe you should be.”
“Maybe you don’t know shit about the biggest hedgehog of them all. Room with a view. They say the Jaguars can’t get within a kilometer of the basement.”
“A kilometer’s a pretty specific number,” replies the Operative. “Particularly when it involves classified operations. You’re merchant marine. Where are you getting all this from?”
“Information’s harder to lock down in space.”
“Give me another example.”
“How about you give me an example?”
“Such as?”
“What’s your business on the Moon?”
The Operative laughs. “Who says I have business on the Moon?”
“That’s where we’re supposed to drop you, isn’t it?”
“Maybe that’s just my transfer point.”
“And maybe it’s not. Come on, man. We’ve got three days together.”
“So?”
“So indulge me. It’s not like I expect you to tell me the truth.”
“Then what the hell do you expect?” asks the Operative.
“How about a good story?”
“Even if it’s a lie?”
“Remember what I said about killing time?”
“I thought you said this wasn’t a social call.”
“So I’m mixing business with pleasure.”
“So put the Elevator back on that screen.”
“I never took it off,” the pilot says.
“Where is it?”
“Lower right-right.”
“Put it at the center.”
“Sure thing.”
It’s the surest thing there is. It’s scarcely two hundred klicks distant. It’s practically a drive-by. Yet it still requires magnification to make out the workers on its side—still requires magnification to discern how they’ve jury-rigged whole series of pulleys to haul themselves along it while they lay down the maglev tracks along which the freight will someday flow. The Operative lets his gaze stray down toward the Elevator’s extremity at Nadir Station some hundred klicks below. Below that’s only atmosphere.
“Am I ever going to get to see it out that window?” he asks.
“You could if the window weren’t facing Earth.”
“I can see it’s facing Earth. What I’m asking is, is that going to change soon.”
“Man’s in luck. When we prime the burn we’ll shift our angle. You should get yourself a good view then.”
“Excellent.”
“So what’s going down on the Moon?”
But the Operative’s just noticed something going down on the screens.
I’m an envoy,” says Morat.
“I’d guessed as much,” replies Haskell.
“I’m an envoy,” he repeats, as though her words compel reiteration. “I report directly to the handlers.”
“How direct can it be when you never see them either?”
“As direct as it needs to be for me to give you your final orders. You’ve been primed across your dreams. You face me in the flesh for activation.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“You already know what’s going on,” he says. “We’re getting hammered.”
“By the Latins.”
“By the Jaguars. The Latins didn’t mean shit until the Jags gave them a voice. Five years ago, these cities were virtually pacified. Everything was locked down. Look at them now. The governments we bought and paid for don’t dare to go inside. The militias are like iron filings over which a magnet’s passing. They’re focused like they’ve never been before.”
“Which is why I’m here,” says Haskell.
“Which is why you’re here.” Morat smiles without warmth. “This city is where they’re making their latest push. It started ten days back. Now it’s as bad as I’ve ever seen it. I tell you, Claire—we either find a way to break them, or else one of these days it’s going to be the other way. And if we’re going to win this, it’s going to have to be CounterIntelligence Command that gets in there and does it. The other Commands won’t. Army’s a hollow shell. Space rides high and disdains dirt. Info avoids the human touch. Navy steers clear of anything that isn’t ocean. The Praetorians have their hands full safeguarding the Throne. It’s going to have to be CICom. It’s going to have to be you, Claire.”
Silence. For minutes. For hours. Is she tripping on the pre-zone rush? Maybe. A structure’s forming in her head, aggregating out of nothing—it spins before her. It’s everything they told her while she was sleeping. It’s the codes that will allow her to beat what she’s about to face. Yet it’s as blurry as the mist outside. It needs the trigger words that Morat’s about to give her to make it real. Those words don’t have to make sense on a conscious level to unearth what’s been buried further down. If they do, it’s only because Morat is choosing to bind them up in context. But context is optional.
Codes aren’t.
“Is this building empty?” she asks. She realizes that Morat has just spoken. That her reverie’s all gone down in one moment.
“Of course not,” Morat replies. “It’s filled with our soldiers.”
“If they’re our soldiers, why are they wearing Army colors?”
“Because ArmyCom’s been divvied up by the rest of the Commands.”
“I hadn’t heard.”
“Shouldn’t let yourself get so out of the loop, Claire. Army did, and now it’s dead in the water. They’re keeping the name, but that’s about it. CICom got the franchise for all operations in this city. The Throne’s charged Sinclair with cleaning the place up.”
“Have these Army units been reconditioned?”
Morat looks at her like she’s stupid.
“Where are we in relation to this hedgehog’s perimeter?” she asks.
“About two or three streets from the edge. We extended the perimeter to encompass these blocks only yesterday.”
“And which floor are we heading to next?”
“The ninety-fifth,” he replies. “It’s the one we were tipped off to.”
“Who tipped us off?”
“An informant. Highly placed in what we believe to be the Jaguars’ command structure.”
“Is this informant reliable?”
“Reliable enough.”
“Enough for this?”
“What are you getting at?”
“That it might be a trap.”
“Of course it might be a trap. But if it’s not, we could roll them up. It’s worth the risk.”
“You mean it’s worth risking me.”
“Well,” says Morat, “I don’t think Sinclair imagines that you’ll be sacrificed. He likes you, Claire. He tells the handlers you’ll live forever. Even if it is a trap—he thinks you’ll be the one who’ll be able to get out and tell us all about it.”
“I can’t tell you how good that makes me feel.”
“You’re getting pretty close to insubordination.”
“I’m not interested in your threats,” she replies. “Not interested in the old man either. Just tell me what we’ve got here.”
“What we’ve got here,” says Morat evenly, “is a tunnel back in time.”
“Excuse me?”
“A tunnel back to the way things used to be.” He grins. “A tunnel straight on through to the way they still are.”
“Are you on drugs?”
“No,” says Morat, “but I know you are. I know you razors. How else do you bear the blast of zone? Can’t even say I blame you. But let me tell you this, Claire—what you’re about to enter is no ordinary zone. Or rather, it was ordinary once upon a time. Just not now. Not any longer.”
“You’re talking legacy.”
“Of course. This city used to be two. Belem and Macapa: a few decades back, they became one. Right about the time the first world-net got sundered. Right about the time the superpowers were building walls around their nets and calling them zones and the Euros were establishing theirs: this place was preoccupied with concerns that were far more local. She was the platform for the last rush to take down the Amazon. And when the bulk of green was gone, and the strip-mining of the Andes took off—once again, this was the place to be. Now she’s ours. Whether we like it or not. She’s got twenty million people. And ten million of those live outside the zone.”