The Mirrored Heavens (22 page)

But somehow she tears herself away: uses the instruments in both cockpits to inventory the sensors in both ships. The exterior ones just reveal rising heat and fading light. The interior ones show rooms, passageways, corridors, crawl spaces—all the contours of contained space. She keeps on moving through the cameras that monitor those silent chambers. All are normal. Except for the one that holds Morat.

A compartment in the back of the lower spaceplane: Morat sits in a corner, atop a crate. His face is expressionless. Pale eyes look straight at her. They’re superimposed against Marlowe’s contorting features. Haskell meets both gazes—while simultaneously she lets her mind thread back toward the cockpit—and then toward the instrument panels in that B-130’s cockpit. But she can’t reach them. She can’t trace a direct link from this particular sensor to what the pilots can see. Something’s blocking the data’s passage. Something’s hacking the comps. A razor immersed can see the truth. A pilot gazing at a screen can’t.

Adrenaline floods Haskell’s body, merges with her distant ecstasy—and as it does so, her perception in the zone sharpens even further. The nervous system into which she’s extended her own crystallizes still finer. The edges grow sharper, the colors brighter, the shadows darker. And in those shadows she can start to see a pattern. She can see there’s something in the zone with her, something connected to Morat. The zone around him is changing—as though he’s somehow warping it. Haskell wonders how good a razor Morat is. She wonders what the hell he’s doing. She creeps in closer, feels her climax closing in. She pushes through thickets of circuits, gazes through them at Morat. She follows the focus of his efforts—sees that he’s reaching into the zone, reaching far beyond the B-130, accessing one of the nearby navigation satellites with codes so covert she can barely see them deploy. From there he passes in one motion through several more sats, obscuring his trail as he does so—but not so well that she can’t follow. She counts ten sats in all, strung across the globe. She follows him ever deeper into that labyrinth even as her vision blurs. Even as her body shakes. She feels the rush as she comes on the other side of planet.

And then Morat produces a door out of nothing.

And opens it. Haskell can’t believe what she’s seeing. She’s staring straight through the wall of the American zone itself. She’s looking straight down a tunnel that leads right through the middle of the moats and ramparts and battlements intended to forestall precisely this. She’s looking out into the neutral zones: staring straight at a snowstorm of traffic rushing past her, none of it seeing the door that’s opened in the wall of universe.

Which is presumably the point. Secret doors aren’t useful if everybody’s in on the secret. Haskell lets her head rest on Marlowe’s heaving shoulder, looks out over Morat’s shoulder, looks out upon that world, looks in the same direction he is—looking at where something’s suddenly flitting in out of that traffic, making a beeline toward the opening.

But she moves first. She lunges out to snap the connection, slam the door. But the thing’s faster—it darts in, whips past her, straight into the lower spaceplane as the door slams shut behind it. She’s got no idea what’s sustaining its connection. Maybe the door’s actually still open. Maybe it’s got one of its own. Or maybe connection isn’t the point. Maybe the real issue is activation. Because now something’s coming to life within the crates that surround Morat. Whatever’s just leapt in from the neutral zones seems to have been the seed. But Haskell can’t see into the crates. She doesn’t know what’s sprouting. All she knows is that now virtual tendrils are starting to sidle from the crates out into the lower spaceplane’s systems—snaking through them, closing on the systems that ring the cockpit. Haskell watches in sick fascination as they move in toward the pilots who sit at the cockpit’s center. She knows she should stop watching. But that thought seems very far away. Even farther than Marlowe as his thrusts grow ever more eager. Far closer is the feeling that she doesn’t need to move very fast at all. That she must be in a dream. That this is some fragment of some half-remembered briefing suddenly engulfing her. That her own mind’s finally tumbled over the brink of sanity. She hauls herself back from that edge—takes in Marlowe, takes in Morat, takes in the shape that’s swelling through the lower spaceplane like some kind of malignant growth. For a moment, she sees straight past it—sees the composite craft as one node among tens of millions, sees the whole zone. It’s her whole world. And then it’s not.

All goes blank. All sound fades into silence, all sensation collapses to a single point. All existence winks out. There’s nothing left—nothing save the eyes of the man who’s just spent himself inside her. They stare into her own.

“Oh God, Claire,” says Marlowe. “I fucking love you.”

“Morat’s on the booster,” she replies. She’s struggling to pull herself off him.

“He’s what?”

“He’s right below us.”

“You’re seeing things,” says Marlowe. But even as he says this, the lights go out. For a moment there’s darkness. But then the emergency lighting kicks in on deep red.

“You’re damn right I’m seeing things,” Haskell mutters. “I’m finally starting to see them clearly.” She seals her shirt, fastens her pants. She hauls herself to her feet, yanks open one of the doors of the chamber.

“Where the hell are you going?” he says.

“Where the hell do you think I’m going?” she says. “I can’t get back into the zone. It’s like there
is
none. I’ve got to try a wire connection into the control node. We’ve got to get inside the cockpit.” She starts to pull herself up the inclined floor toward it.

“Claire,” says Marlowe. “You’re losing it.”

“If I’m losing it, then
who the fuck turned out the lights
?”

But Marlowe’s not responding. He’s just pulling himself out of his seat, pulling his own pants up, pulling himself after her. The corridor to which the forward door of their takeoff room leads is about six meters long. The only other door in that corridor leads to the cockpit. Marlowe fights the acceleration, catches up with Haskell when she’s halfway to that door. He tries to grab her arm. She backhands him across the face.

“Don’t you fucking touch me!”

“Easy, Claire,” says Marlowe. “Easy.”

“It’s not like you think,” she says, and now she’s weeping. “I don’t know what’s happening between you and me. All I know is what we’re heading for.” She keeps on hauling herself toward the cockpit.

“Morat’s on this fucking plane. His hack threw me straight from zone. I swear it. I swear I’m not going crazy.”

“Then who turned out the lights?”

“I told you already! Morat’s fucking with the plane!”

“I thought Morat was on our side!”

She stares at him. “Are you in league with him?” she asks.

“Who are
you
in league with? What did you do when you were in there? Why did you choose that particular moment to distract me? You know my file. You know my memories. You know me
too well,
Claire.”

She stares at him, mouth open. She turns, reaches the cockpit door. She tries to open it. It won’t budge. She works the manuals, slides it open.

The two bodies of the pilots are still in their chairs. Agony’s frozen on their faces. No wounds are evident. The lights of the controls wink around them. The windows show blue that’s almost black.

“Oh Jesus,” says Haskell.

Marlowe’s drawn his gun. He’s pointing it at her with one hand while he holds on to the doorway with the other.

“I’ve got to try to get back in the zone,” she says.

“Sure, Claire,” he replies. “Whatever you say.”

“I didn’t do this!”

“God, I hope that’s true.”

“Put your gun away!”

“Not until we figure out what’s going on.”

She’s tempted to rage at him. She’s tempted to scream. She’s tempted to lunge for his weapon. But she realizes that such actions would compound the problem. So she just talks quickly while she holds on to the back of the chair in front of her.

“Jason. Look at me. I’m on your side. But if I wasn’t, I’d have taken you by surprise. I wouldn’t have let it come to this—your gun against my head, two dead to get you totally alert. Think about it, Jason. Something’s wrong and it’s far bigger than the two of us. And besides: if
you’re
wrong about the person whom you’re pointing that gun at, things are about to go from bad to downright awful unless we
start
working together, for fuck’s sake
.”

He looks at her. He looks at the controls. He looks at the dead pilots. He looks back at her.

“Okay,” he says. “Fine.” He doesn’t put the gun away. But he’s no longer pointing it at her. “Do what you have to. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” says a voice.

They both whirl toward it. A dashboard-encased screen has sprung to life. It casts dull glow across their faces. The face of Morat sits upon it.

“We’ve got a problem,” he says.

“You’re damn right we’ve got a problem.” Haskell levels her finger at the screen. “You’re on this fucking plane.”

“You’re right,” says Morat, betraying no surprise. “I’m here to protect you. You’re in grave danger. The upper plane is infected.”

“With what?”

“With the Rain,” says Morat. “They’ve infiltrated.”

Haskell flings herself across the cockpit, smashes into that screen with both fists. Morat’s face disintegrates. Shards of plastic fly. But even as they hit the ground, that face is flickering back into existence.

On every remaining screen.

“You can’t destroy them
all,
” he says.

“You were trying to lure us to the lower plane,” says Haskell slowly. “You’re Autumn Rain.”

“No,” he says. “I’m not. But I’m going to take you to them.”

They stare at him.

“Right now,” he adds.

“Going to tell us why?” asks Haskell softly.

“There’d be no point,” he replies. “Save to say that I swore to deliver them live runners.”

“You’re not Morat,” says Marlowe.

“Oh yes he
is,
” says Haskell.

“And what the fuck do you think you’re getting out of it?” asks Marlowe.

“Everything that matters,” says Morat. “When they hurl the rulers of this planet down in pieces finer than those into which that Elevator burned: I’ll be at their side. When they hold sway over all flesh, I’ll take my place among the anointed. All I have to do is convey you to their sanctuary.”

“You’ve gone insane,” says Marlowe.

“You’re a traitor,” says Haskell.

“Words,”
says Morat. “Outmoded concepts. Distracting talents like you. But they don’t have to. Come of your own free will, and I promise you’ll receive privileges similar to my own. They granted me the authority to make such offers. We don’t have to resort to anything unseemly. We can be envoy and runners once more.”

“Never in hell,” says Haskell.

“But Claire,” says Morat, “you’ve got to serve someone. And it can’t be Sinclair. I know he seems so sleek in those dreams of yours. But in truth he’s so tired. So old. He doesn’t even know how we fooled him. How we’ve turned CICom against those it would protect. How even now we move into the second stage.”

“I hate you,” says Haskell.

“But that’s what binds us,” replies Morat. He laughs but it’s not really laughter. “The cornerstone of the race’s future. You can’t stop it. Believe me, you’ve no idea. All this talk of halting the Rain in their tracks, and that’s all it is: just talk. You plan, you scheme, and yet they thought of all contingencies so long ago. They’re invincible.”

“Morat,” says Marlowe slowly, “what is it that you want us to do?”

“He wants us to keep talking,”
shouts Haskell. She straps in, leans into the controls.

“Jacking in, Claire?” asks Morat. “It won’t be as easy this time. Do yourself a favor and don’t even try. And don’t think about bailing out either. Unless you want to provide me with a little target practice.”

“Shut
up,
” she says. She fumbles with the switches. She extrudes wires from her fingers.

“Don’t be so hasty,” he replies. “You’re diving straight to your death. What’s waiting for you in the zone will see to that.”

“We’ll see about that,” hisses Haskell as she jacks in. She knows that haste is the whole point. If she’s going to beat whatever’s in there, she’s going to have to do it before it consolidates its position. But it’s ready for her nonetheless. It’s trying to finish her straight from the start. It’s raining fire and brimstone right down upon her head. She dodges the missiles, steps in under them—breaks from open ground to where the sky’s bolts can’t touch her. She dashes straight into the thicket within which lurks the nexus of all decisions. The nest of switches that’s this cockpit. She’s there. Along with something else.

It looks a lot like her. It leaps to forestall her. Now it towers above her. She makes her move, cuts out into the open. It takes her bait, rushes in toward her, starts to engulf her. But she doesn’t panic. She shifts the whole framework, goes from one-on-one to million-on-million: the landscape becomes a web of endless bridges across which she fights her endless battles. Only now it’s a different type of war—she wages holding actions, conducts sallies, lays and raises sieges. But it’s strong. It doesn’t conform to any pattern she’s ever seen. She’s losing. She trades off position for time. She times its actions, reactions, movements.

And suddenly catches it in ambush, smashes straight into it. She thinks she sees myriad faces contort in pain. She thinks she sees faces falling back. She follows, hammering blows down upon them. They’re giving way. They’re retreating altogether.

But only to the lower spaceplane.

As they do so, the firewall of that plane activates. She tries to forge through it. She can’t. She feels herself burning. She pulls back—secures the cockpit of the Janus, extends her control across the whole upper plane, secures all its data-ports, secures its own firewall. She lets her face appear upon one of the cockpit’s screens. She looks out at Marlowe.

“The upper plane’s ours,” she says. “The lower plane’s theirs.”