“Bar at the Hotel Rex. I ordered a coffee, and then handed them the keys to down the Phoenix Elevator.”
“How many of them?”
“A man and a woman.”
“Or not.”
“Might have just been robot proxies,” admits Linehan.
“Might have planted anything inside you.”
“I used to worry about that. But now I figure if the Manilishi couldn’t find it, we’re all fucked anyway.”
“Well,” says Spencer, “at least that story’s the same one you were telling InfoCom’s interrogators four days back. No one’s fucked with it since.”
“By changing up my memory?”
“I’m just checking. It’s all I can do.”
“Not for much longer. The Rain’s going to have to fire this party up before the Throne …” Linehan pauses, stares out the window at the Earth.
“Before what?” asks Spencer. Linehan looks back at him with a strange expression on his face.
“Before the Throne finds a way out,” he says.
“You mean by incinerating himself.”
“Sarmax was hinting to me that if he does that, the Rain may take over regardless.”
“So what’s your point?”
“That the Throne might just try to get out the same way he got in.”
A pause. Then: “You’re not serious.”
“Of course I am.”
“He can’t do that.”
“He sure as fuck can try.”
They’ve left that chasm behind. They’re moving into the very heights of the city. The gravity’s dropping away around them. There are signs of more combat here: buildings flattened like something’s plowed through them. The remnants of something lies in the middle of the street in front of them.
“One of our shakers,” says the Operative.
“Must have got nailed right out of the gate,” says Lynx.
The droids that did it lie in pieces all around. The main Praetorian spearhead exited the city far lower—went through the basements and then surged out into the suburbs. This was one of the flanking formations. Another shaker’s laying on its back, farther down the city slope, in the middle of a crushed bridge. The Operative maneuvers round it, takes the Remoraz up stairs that become ladders that lead past some of the more rarefied neighborhoods. Conventional wisdom says that people prefer gravity to its lack. But conventional wisdom ended up playing second fiddle to the law of scarcity. The views up near the axis are exclusive.
Maybe even more so now. The city falls away beneath them like a wall down the side of some dark well. Electric lights stutter here and there—stand-alone generators still holding out against the odds. The valleys beyond are just black, lit up by the occasional streak of sun. Nothing moves in all that gloom. Nothing visible, anyway.
The Operative works the controls. Their vehicle leans off the ladder, leans against a wall, kicks off with its back feet, drops down to a balcony, its front feet extended. Laser cutters set within the feet trace arcs in the window before them. The craft extends its nose, shoves. Plastic gives way. The Operative gestures at the shadowed city on the rear screens.
“Take a good look,” he says. “Might be your last.”
“Let’s hope so,” says Lynx.
“Let’s do it,” says Sarmax.
They start their journey into the interior.
Another rumbling shakes the room. The floor vibrates. “What the fuck,” says Spencer. “Take a wild guess,” says Linehan. The rumbling intensifies. The gun beneath their feet starts swiveling on automatic. They can feel it sliding back and forth, seeking targets, sensing them close at hand … “Jesus fucking Christ,” says Spencer. “Like he gives a shit,” replies Linehan. The vibrations are relentless now. The sensors show they run the gamut—ranging from almost undetectable to off-the-charts unmistakable. It’s almost impossible to discern the exact nature of any one of them. But in aggregation they tell Linehan and Spenser all they need to know about what’s clearly taking place. Explosions ripping apart bulkheads, shakers grinding through walls, shots slamming into everything and then some—combat’s under way. The two men eye the windows, the door, the corners. Almost as though they suddenly expect their enemy to spring from the walls. Which may not be an illogical assumption.
A gun-tower off to the side suddenly balloons outward, silent explosion tearing its turret off and tossing it into space. Suited Praetorians are emerging from a bunker nearby, firing at something still unseen. Even as they do so, a frag-shell lands among them, shreds their suits, leaves pieces floating lifeless.
“Getting hot,” says Spencer.
“What the hell’s that?”
A new rumbling’s shaking the room, coming from straight out beyond the perimeter. It bears a familiar vibration signature.
“That was what we heard earl—”
“I know,” says Linehan.
And now they’re seeing it again too: some strange object protruding just beyond the asteroid’s horizon. Something that’s not small. And that’s rising steadily from the horizon. Not because it’s getting any larger. But rather …
“It’s heading straight for us.”
“What the fuck is it,” says Spencer.
“I’m not sure it matters,” replies Linehan.
The basements of the shattered city that reigned as queen of neutral space give way to maintenance corridors that give way to freight conduits that give way in turn to ….
“These look familiar,” says Sarmax. “They should,” replies the Operative.
Because this is where it all kicked off. The warehouses through which they’re moving are the ones from which the shakers set off on their breakneck haul across the cylinder more than twelve hours back. They’re empty now. Backup filaments cast a feeble light. The Operative wonders how many of the soldiers who waited here are still alive. He lets the vehicle prowl up a ramp and rise through more trapdoors and into another corridor. A vaultlike door lies open at its end.
“Fucking déjà vu,” says Lynx.
They head through, into a familiar double-leveled chamber. The darkness is near total, save for the light of stars coming in from the window facing space. The Operative amps the craft’s photo-enhancers, uses the starlight for a close inspection of the room.
Not that there’s much to see. It’s mostly empty. Though it’s obviously been ransacked since the Praetorians took off. Wall panels have been ripped down, tossed aside. Flooring’s been torn up. The area where the Manilishi and the ruler of the United States once stood shows signs of special attention.
“Due diligence,” says Sarmax.
“They’ll have found nothing useful,” replies the Operative.
But he understands the thinking. Make sure you’re in a position to capitalize on every fuck-up. Or anything that even looks like one. Which is why the Operative has crossed from pole to pole again. Why he’s come back to this room. And why he’s turning to the men behind him.
“It’s time,” he says.
• • •