The Mirrored Heavens (37 page)

“I’m talking to the one who calls himself Linehan,” says the voice that echoes from a speaker on Spencer’s belt—as dry as the dust the room contains, as harsh as the bombed-out cityscape that lies outside the window of the warehouse they call shelter. “I’m talking to the man who’s been the vehicle to drive half the Atlantic into zone blackout. I’m pretty sure he can hear me.”

“He can,” says Linehan.

“Linehan,” says Control. Inflection falls from the voice like a cloak tossed upon the floor. “Do you know who I am?”

“I do.”

“Tell me.”

“You’re Control. You’re the Priam Combine’s most valuable asset in North America. You report direct to London. I assure you that I didn’t enter your domain lightly.”

“Fine words,” says Control. Something somewhere between laugh and static hisses softly through the room. “Meaningless sounds. Your
attitude
is beside the point. Your actions are what’s at issue here.”

“I came to your man with a fair bargain.” Spencer listens impassively to himself described in the third person. He doesn’t take his eyes off Linehan. “He put that bargain to you. You accepted. To what actions of mine are you referring?”

“The very same. You flushed my agent from cover. You blackmailed him into opening up a conduit through which all too many minds vectored onto mine.”

“No,” says Linehan. “At no point have you been the target of this operation.”

“You use words so carefully,” says Control. Suddenly the voice is nothing but inflection. “You lie so freely. You skirt so close to truth. You’re beyond abomination. ‘At no point have you been the target of this operation.’ Listen to yourself! I know I wasn’t
the
target. I was
one
of the targets. Just one. So very far from only.”

“As was I.”

“No,” says Control, “you were just bait. You were just a pawn. Whether or not you knew it. You were nothing but a hollow man with a hollow promise that was the weapon around which my operation and countless others were to be turned inside out. While you were battling your way off that train—while the whole zone contorted in the grip of God knows how many hacks—while incidents went down all over the Earth-Moon system and God knows how much meat came within reach of God knows how much mouth: I became prey myself. A federal sting. Or at least what looked like one. They surrounded the block where I was. Seventy floors of data storage, and they knew I was in one of the tanks. They had me triangulated. They severed the streets. They cut the power. They cut the lines so I couldn’t escape. My backup generators sustained me. They sent their soldiers in. They went from room to room. They closed in on me.”

“I knew none of this,” says Linehan.

“How would you? It was just me. I waited. I bided my time. Such as it was. I let them eliminate possibilities. Let them narrow down their options. And all the while I waited for my moment. It came the way it always does. Through their assumptions. A luxury the trapped can’t afford. They thought I hadn’t broken their tactical codes. Nor were they wrong. But I was swimming through that traffic even as those boots sounded all around me. I was staying on top of their frequencies even as they shifted. I was
listening
. And suddenly I understood. I broke their code. I broke into one of the suits. The man inside never knew. His medical dispenser dished out a lethal dose. He died. But it was as if he was still there. His vital signs were online for all to see. It was child’s play to replicate them. It was nothing to steer that suit to one particular tank and tap in. A physical conduit was established. The main body of my mind crossed over in one swift download.”

Control goes silent. Spencer feels himself to be at the very edge of all maps. He feels that one more step might be all it takes to damn him forever. He feels everything’s riding on one more word. And then Control continues:

“I stumbled from the scene of my ultimate transaction while my consciousness fought for survival. The software in that suit was good. But it was intended for a single infantryman. It wasn’t enough to house the likes of me. I sent parts of myself into dormancy, threw them over the side of my awareness like so much ballast. I shut down all noncritical components of that suit, took up every unit of real space myself. And, even as I did so, I walked past my hunters. They thought they were gazing at their own. They never knew what had taken place behind that visor. I carried the corpse in that shell all the way out. I reached the unbroken zone. I hurled myself into the immense. I left that suit behind. I hid. You called. I’m talking to you now. And now, Linehan, you are going to tell me
exactly
who you are. Lest I sign off and leave you in the lurch forever.”

“I’m U.S. Space Command,” says Linehan.

“I suspected as much,” says Control.

“I was assigned to down the Elevator.”

“Go on,” says Control.

“We sought to use the Rain to do that.”

“Why?”

“I was never told the why. I didn’t need it. All I needed was the how. It was textbook black-ops. We were ordered to arm some no-name terrorist group that we were told had been watched by us for years. No-name patsies based in HK. They already had the nukes. All they needed was the codes. The ones we turned over. Even as they hit the Elevator we were hitting them in their bases. But they’d already cleaned out. They were ghosts, Control. And then they hit my team and left me running.”

“Just you?” Control’s voice is several thousand klicks away. But the breath of that mouth might as well be drifting right before the ones who listen.

“No,” says Linehan, and now the tears are running down his face. “Not just me. Three others. We fled back within the walls of America. It was the worst thing we could have done. Our own side was on us like we were dogs. Dogs who knew too much.”

“So you went rogue,” says Control.

“And realized that’s all we’d ever been. We’d been set up every which way from the start. And those who we’d thought were dead had taken on new life and gone on the lam once more. Even as our own side sought to take us out. I’m a soldier, Control. So are you. You know what soldiers do, Control. They obey their goddamn orders. Even if they don’t know who’s giving them. Even if they start to suspect that the chains that bind them back to heaven have been broken. That someone somewhere up above them is
off the fucking leash
. By the time we woke up it was far too late. I ditched the ones I ran with. I let them stumble on toward Kennedy. Maybe I lost my nerve. Maybe I was putting them forth as bait. All I know is that they died and I lived. That I’ve been pursued by my own kind through the basement of Atlantic. That I sought to use Autumn Rain. That I was spat out by them instead.”

“But not before you met them,” says Control.

Linehan starts to speak. And stops. His eyes dart to the corners of the room. His voice dies to a whisper.

“I didn’t even realize it was them at first. There was a man. There was a woman. We sat in a bar in Hong Kong and drank. We gave them downloads. But maybe they downloaded something into me. Because they’ve been swelling in my mind ever since. They’re demons. They’re aliens. I don’t know what the fuck they are. They’re ambitious beyond belief. There’s nothing they don’t want. They’ve played us all and I don’t even know what to call their game.”

“Save that it involves gaming you even now.”

“Save me,” begs Linehan. “Save us all. I don’t know what they’ve put in my head. All I know is that I’ve got to get out. And you’ve got to fucking help me.”

“Even when you’ve just admitted that you’re poison?”

“You’ve always known what I was, Control. You know that doesn’t matter. Get me though that border and you’ll get your chance to find out all the things I don’t even know I know. You’ll get your chance to find out if the Rain themselves are stalking me. And to see who else might be crazy enough to try. You know you can’t resist it. I know you far too well.”

“Then I need hardly tell you I’m going to talk to Spencer,” says Control. The voice cuts out. And resumes inside Spencer’s head.

“Spencer,” it says, “this will be our last conversation.”

“What do you mean?”

“My ability to inflect this situation is approaching its limits. As is the risk to my position.”

“The risk to
your
position? And mine—”

“Has never been stronger. How much higher can a pawn get than to be the object of so much attention?

What could be better than knowing that I’m going to wind you up for one last try?”

“And while I run you’re going to watch.”

“And while I watch you’re going to blame me. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But now I need you to focus on the larger picture. A major power struggle is going down in the Inner Cabinet. CICom has been dismembered. Something’s stirring in the depths of SpaceCom. This man is just one fugitive among many now. So join the ranks of the refugees, Spencer. It’s time to travel rough. You made it through the southern tunnels. You’re sitting in the city they call Belem-Macapa. You’re ready to make the run straight up that river.”

“What else would you suggest?”

“I wouldn’t. I’d take it all the way.”

“The Latin run.”

“Exactly. Go west along the Amazon and then turn south. At this point it’s probably the only hope you have.”

“Upriver’s insanity, Control. If even half the stories are true—”

“All the better for you if they are. It’s all in the map that’s hitting you now. Along with the numbers of some neutral bank accounts. My last gifts to you.”

“And you’re really cutting contact with me.”

“Only way to play this, Spencer. Whatever happens, I’m all we’ve got in here. I like you, Spencer. But like’s not the same as programming.”

“You can say that again,” says Spencer.

“Try to remember that I’m here forever. Or until they bring me to bay for good. That I’m more than sworn to postpone that day as long as possible. As I said, one conversation more. This one. And this is the end between us.”

“Why are you rationalizing this?”

“I’m not. I’m trying to focus you one last time. Don’t look backward. Only forward. Now go.”

The connection terminates. Spencer rips the jack out of his head, tears the wires out of the wall. He shoves past Linehan. He staggers over to the window, presses his face up against the plastic. He exhales.

“So what else did your imaginary friend have to say,” says Linehan.

“He’s not my friend,” says Spencer. “He never was.”

“It’s an overrated concept anyway,” says Linehan.

B
ut what’s not overrated is your first sight of Congreve. The first city built by man never to know the Earth—the city above which false stars cluster into strange zodiacs that denote the fleet that sits sixty thousand klicks out. Somewhere in those swarms are the SpaceCom flagships. Somewhere in that city two men gaze out a window.

“Nice place you got here,” says the Operative.

“I know,” replies Sarmax.

The geometry of off-world rooftops stretches before them. Distant mountains loom through a translucent dome. The sky’s alive with lights. Shadows play within the darkened room.

“Lot of activity,” says the Operative.

“Yes,” replies Sarmax.

“They’re moving onto war footing.”

“After major incidents in two oceans, they have to.” Sarmax turns from the window. The curtains swing shut behind him even as the interior lights come up. The room thus revealed is ornately furnished. A crystal globe of the Moon sits within one corner. Sarmax walks to it. Regards it. Shrugs.

“We have to assume free agency,” he adds. “Until we can prove otherwise, we have to assume that those who are supposed to be in control still are. The East has reason enough to hate us already. Lord knows we’ve got enough reasons to hate them.”

“But all that’s just context,” says the Operative.

“Right. It’s all just context. One that the new players are exploiting. We have to remember who we’re dealing with. They aren’t just assassins. They’re
takeover artists
. They burrow from within. We have to assume that as soon as they succeed in either East or West, they’ll initiate a preemptive strike—
if
they come to the conclusion they’re not going to be able to pull off a doubleheader.”

“The worst case of all,” says the Operative.

“Believe it. They may be able to do this quietly. They may not need war at all.”

“But they’ve got far too many reasons to press for it.”

“Meaning what?”

The Operative stares. “Come
on,
Leo.”

“I want you to say it.”

“Okay,” says the Operative. “I’ll say it. Everything they’ve done is calculated to drive up tension. Why else down the Elevator? Now neither side can trust the other. Talk about taking an axe to détente. And whatever it was they wanted in that spaceplane—they did it in a way that winds the noose ever tighter. They know what they’re doing.”

Sarmax twirls the globe absently. “That’s what concerns me most. They’ve learned new tricks. They’ve developed an uncanny talent for street theater that frankly scares me shitless. They’re using it to drive the world toward the brink. Which makes it even easier for someone who’s got the moves to creep in toward the center. All those alerts, all those special clearances, all those doors being slammed shut: to a world-class infiltrator, those things are just goddamn
tools
. The closer to the edge the world gets, the more the Rain enable the very conditions that will underpin their triumph.”

“So what are we going to do about it?”

“
You’re
going to do what your boss told you. Hit the speakeasies. And I’m going to start some transactions you can keep an eye on.”

“And my boss?”

“We keep him informed.”

“We do?”

“Of course. All we need to hide from him is me, Carson. Which won’t be a problem as long as he buys the duplicate house-node you sold him. Beyond that, we can pretty much feed him anything you and I come up with. Let’s see what he does with it. Let’s see what else he’s got. If he orders you somewhere suddenly, that’s probably where we want to be. And it probably won’t be very far. They’re close, Carson. They’re real close.”