The Burning Skies (35 page)

“About what the hell is going on inside your head.”

“You are.”

“No kidding?”

“I can see straight through you and you’re hollow.”

“That’s what I called you once.”

“What?”

“That’s what I called you once,” repeats Spencer. “The original hollow man.”

“Maybe you were right.”

“I’m your handler, Linehan. I’m supposed to be right.”

“So tell me what the fuck you think is going on.”

“I think the basic core of your personality is probably
disintegrating. Essentially what you are is just an empty shell held together by love of killing. Once you’re out on your own for long enough, you’ll start coming apart.”

“Is this some kind of reverse-psychology to shock some sense into me?”

“It’s just a theory about what your brain might be up to.”

“You really don’t think I’m being fucked with?”

“You
were
fucked with, Linehan. By InfoCom and before that by the Jags.”

“And before that by the Rain.”

“Maybe you should tell me more about that.”

T
hree men in a room that’s no room making passage through the land of the dead. Black landscape stretches away toward the unseen outskirts of the city at the heart of it all ….

“Don’t make me go there,” says Sarmax.

“You fucking have to,” says the Operative.

“Otherwise we can’t break this down,” says Lynx.

Sarmax nods. Going head to head with the Rain is going down memory lane—looking into the eyes of the ones he hasn’t seen for all these years. They never liked him, of course. Partially because he represented the power that brought them into existence. But mostly because they knew that one of them loved him—and for that the men and women who became the Rain could never forgive Leo Sarmax. So when they fled ahead of the Praetorian axe, the woman who called herself Indigo Velasquez had to make a choice. Her brothers and sisters won out over her lover. Her lover killed her for that. He’s had to live with himself ever since.

And that’s been getting tougher. He thought getting back in the game would be what he needed to get it all behind him. He should have known better; should have known which way
this game was heading—that it would bring him to a place like this, stalking his own memories through a maze that hides far more than one mind ever could….

“Easy,” says the Operative.

“Goddamn you both,” says Sarmax. “She was real. Christ, I shouldn’t have—shouldn’t have—”

There’s a lurch. The screens show the craft’s starting to sidle up hills. Starlight filters in through some fissure far above them, bathes the land in a ghostly light. Past those hills the structures of New London stretch up toward an unseen summit. Sarmax exhales slowly.

I
t’s funny,” says Linehan. “Looking back on all of it. Coming up in SpaceCom you start to scorn everything that crawls below. Living and breathing it, right? Working for the cause. Night’s when they say it is, and day’s whenever the sun falls upon you.”

“You’re not making any sense, man.”

“Is that so bad?” Linehan’s smile is almost sad. “What I mean is that I’d never been to Earth before.”

“Before what?”

“Before I came to your door in Minneapolis when you were doing time for the Priam Combine. Before I walked the streets of Hong Kong in search of a group called Asgard’s Banner.”

Spencer stares. “That was the only time?”

“Yeah.”

“So how—”

“Did I stand it? How do you think? Had muscle grafts to deal with the pull of the planet. Had lung filters to deal with its stench. Had software to prep me for what it’d be like—but nothing could.”

“Nor could anything prepare you for Asgard’s Banner.”

“Though with a name that gay I should have known, huh? Autumn Rain took our codes, and maybe they took our souls too. But standing in that city, with the mountains of planet towering overhead—I think that fucked my head even more than the ayahuasca. I feel like all of it’s still playing out within me.”

“Same here,” says Spencer.

“Do you see shimmering out of the corner of your eye?”

“Sometimes. Probably not as strong as you.”

“Do you see cat-skulls when you sleep?”

“I never dream. I’m surprised you do.”

“I don’t.”

“Dream?” asks Spencer.

“See cat-skulls when I do.”

There’s a pause. The two men look at each other.

“I see them when I’m awake,” says Linehan.

“That’s a problem.”

“And the rest of this bullshit isn’t?”

C
reeping through streets filled with fresh wreckage and dead flesh. Stealing past buildings that have collapsed in upon one another to crush whoever was taking refuge within. Took more than fifteen years to build this city and less than fifteen minutes for it to die. “Indigo always was a survivor,” says the Operative. “Of course she was,” replies Sarmax. “I trained her.”

“You trained all of us,” says Lynx. And we all trained the Rain,” says the Operative. “And that’s why we need to go back to first principles to beat them. They knew the three of us would be up here. And you’re the only one of us who let himself get emotional over one of them.”

“But you took up with—”

“Do I look like I’m letting it get to me?”

“The man’s ice cold,” says Lynx.

“Cold enough to realize that the odds of the Rain trying to fuck with you are pretty good,” says the Operative.

“Maybe,” says Sarmax.

“‘Seize all advantages’, that’s what we told them. Any of them could be wearing her face.”

“All
of them could be wearing her face,” says Lynx.

“Or it could just be combat fever,” says the Operative. “You want to see her, and you do. It happens.”

“Shit,” says Sarmax.

He’s staring at bodies. Most of the population seems to have perished as the seals burst. Those who made it into suits and airlocks found their sanctuaries hacked. Those who took their suits offline were shot down by the servants of the Rain. Sarmax clears his throat, swallows.

“I know they could be fucking with me,” he says. “I know I could be fucking with myself. It isn’t helping.”

“This isn’t about trying to help,” says Lynx.

“This is about trying to get inside
their
heads,” says the Operative. “Inside their schemes. The Throne reckons three of their triads hit each cylinder. We think all three of the ones chasing the East got nailed when the Coalition’s leaders blew themselves to kingdom fuck. We think one of the three after us went down when the asteroid buttfucked the mountain.”

“Still leaves two full triads after us,” says Lynx.

“But they’ll be wishing it was more,” says Sarmax.

“This is coming down to the wire,” says the Operative. “They’re going to want every advantage they can get.”

“And if they can get to you, Leo,” says Lynx, “they’re halfway there.”

“You’re the last person I’d expect to say that,” says Sarmax.

Lynx shrugs. “I owe you a lot. Doesn’t seem much harm in admitting it.”

“And without your drugs you’d be perfect.”

“That’s what
makes
me perfect. How else could I get this city around my fucking brain?”

“Christ almighty. You’re high right now.”

“That’s how he does his best work,” says the Operative.

And who the hell can blame him? Not with Hades itself unfurling on the screens. Not with all these shattered roads to keep on reaching up to that wraparound summit so far overhead. But it’s what’s still moving that’s the problem now. It’s what’s close at hand.

“I see it,” says the Operative.

More important, their vehicle does. It gets low, gets crafty, slinks through alleys toward the activity that’s up ahead. Toward the new scene that’s getting built within the heart of the old ….

“Fuck,”
says Lynx.

“Economy on war footing,” says the Operative.

He’s not kidding. Whole sections of buildings have been torn away. The chasm revealed stretches down through basements, through maintenance levels beneath, and into what was once the spaceport. The light that emanates up from that chasm isn’t visible from the rest of the cylinder. But it’s certainly visible to the ones peering beyond its edge. The walls are thick with machines of every size. Who seem to be busy slicing up everything in sight: floors, walls, spaceships, launch derricks, equipment. Not to mention …

“Yeah,” says Sarmax, “those are people all right.”

“The meat gets tossed,” says the Operative. “The implants get kept.”

“Not very efficient,” says Lynx.

“Doesn’t need to be,” says Sarmax.

• • •

R
umbling fills the room, dies away. Spencer and Linehan glance at each other, glance out the window. Nothing’s visible, save the Earth dropping back out of sight again. But something’s definitely happening out beyond the shoved-up horizon ….

“Kills you, this waiting,” says Spencer.

“Not much longer now,” replies Linehan.

“What the hell are they
doing?”

“Getting ready to overwhelm the perimeters with their hardware.”

“Leaving open the question of where they themselves will strike.”

“Maybe they’ll come straight through our position.”

“Maybe they’re
in
our position already,” says Spencer.

Linehan stares at him. “I hope not.”

“Where exactly in Hong Kong did you meet the Rain?”

“Little Sydney district.”

“Where
exactly?”

“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.