“Go on.”
“And no way were they gonna leave this kind of talent back in HK. They’ll grab them as a matter of course. Along with anyone with expertise in nanotech, directed energy, stealth—you name it, they’ll have it. Trying to deduce what we’re looking for from what they’re vacuuming out of HK is an exercise in futility.”
“You’re probably right,” says Sarmax.
“Of course I’m right. And it looks like most of the really sensitive stuff under those hills is cauterized from wireless, if not cut off altogether. We’re going to have to wait till we get a little closer to find out for sure.”
“Works for me,” says Sarmax—turns toward the window.
• • •
A clean sweep,” says Haskell. “Against enemies within and without.”
“That’s the idea.”
“The Throne’s making a mistake in keeping me out of this.”
“I don’t think so.”
“There’s too much at stake, Carson.”
“That’s why we can’t risk you being compromised.”
“You really think the Throne’s enemies might get to me?”
“Can you guarantee otherwise?”
“Why the hell would I have destroyed Autumn Rain if I was plotting against the Throne?”
“It’s a good point.”
“So the Throne shouldn’t be keeping me stowed away like this.” She’s disturbed to find how angry she’s getting. “He should be bringing me online.”
“Unless.”
“Unless what?”
The Operative just stares at her. She stares back.
“What are you getting at, Carson?”
“I’m hoping you can answer that question for me.”
“You think that someone might still have a back door to my mind.”
“Can you rule it out?”
She shakes her head.
“We know those doors exist, Claire. We used one on the Platform. So did the Rain. We’d thought they were all accounted for. But we have reason to believe that some of the original CICom data on you might have wound up in the hands of Szilard himself. Meaning that as a weapon you’d be worse than useless. You’d be turned against us by SpaceCom.”
“Not necessarily. It all depends—”
“On what sort of back doors we’re talking about. Exactly.”
“Where’s your evidence?
“Call it a hypothesis.”
“A pretty specific one. Why do you think Szilard—”
“Never mind what we think about the Lizard. What matters now is you.”
“I can find out,” she says.
“Find out what.”
“If there’s a back door.”
“Really?” He moves toward her.
“Given enough time,” she says. She draws away.
“We don’t have that time,” he says.
“What are you proposing?”
“I’m not proposing anything.”
She starts to lunge aside. But he’s already driving the needle into her flesh.
It’s as though she’s falling down some long tunnel where there’s no light and no darkness save what’s already in her head—swirling all around, solidifying into fragments of mirror that reflect everything she’s ever dreamed straight back into her eyes … blinding her, spinning her around to the point where it’s like the universe is nothing but rotation and she’s the only constant. But everywhere she looks it’s the same: the face of Carson and all he’s saying is labyrinth labyrinth labyrinth that’s all you are and all you’ll ever be—
It all snaps into focus.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“I’m operating,” he replies.
He’s not kidding. He’s got her strapped back into the chair, her blood filled with painkillers so she can’t feel a thing. She can see through only one eye. The other one’s dangling in the zero-G beside her nose. He’s plucked it out. The optic nerve is hanging there, along with tangles of circuitry that lead back inside her eye socket. He’s got his razorwire extended from one hand into the circuitry. But she sees something else, too: droplets of blood floating in front of her, and she suddenly realizes that—
“You’ve cut through my skull,” she says.
“Trepanation,” he replies. “Of a sort.”
Messing with her brain. She can’t see what he’s up to there. But she can feel it. Colors surge against her. Landscapes churn past her. Some moon’s hovering somewhere out in front of her. It starts to swell ever larger.
“Have you found the door?” she mutters.
“You’re the door,” he says. “You always were.”
“I never wanted that.”
“That never mattered.”
Everything goes black.
Prowling through corridors of dark. Climbing up stairways filled with light. Watching from behind the screens as the clock keeps on ticking and the ship keeps on moving away from the farside toward the only libration point invisible to Earth. The fleet that’s deployed there is the largest in existence. It’s the ultimate strategic reserve. If the war to end all wars begins it’ll lay waste to the Eurasian bases on the farside even as it duels with the L4 fortresses—even as its squadrons scramble left and right around the Moon to envelop the Eurasian nearside operations.
Or maybe not. Maybe it’ll just stay put. There are so many battle scenarios flitting through Stefan Lynx’s head, and none of them really matter: they’re just the projections from which he’s reverse-engineering the actual composition of the fleet and mapping out the vectors via which he’s going to penetrate to its heart. That fleet stacks up in Lynx’s mind like some vast web. The only thing that counts now is confronting the spider at its center. Whether or not Szilard is guilty is incidental—there’s a larger game afoot. The ultimate run’s under way. Lynx has never felt so high. Beneath him engines surge as the ship keeps on taking him ever higher.
She wakes again. She’s in a zeppelin. She’s been here before. She’s looking out a window at a burning city far below.
“Hello Claire,” says Jason Marlowe.
She whirls. He’s sitting cross-legged against the far wall. He’s smiling like he did right before she killed him.
“You’re dead,” she says.
“And you should know,” he replies.
“Why are you here?”
“I was hoping you could tell me that.”
“I’m being fucked with, Jason.”
“By who?”
“By Carson. He’s inside my head.”
“Was wondering why it’s feeling so crowded in here.”
“You’ve been here all along?”
“I wish you’d joined us, Claire.”
“I wish I had too.”
“We were Rain.”
“Maybe we still are.”
“No,” he says. “You killed us all.”