Mirrored Heavens

“You’ve got ten seconds before I start coming after you,” he shrieks. “So you’d better haul ass.” He sounds like a madman. Spencer’s starting to realize that’s probably exactly what he is.

“You’re fucking crazy,” he says.

“Do you want to live or don’t you?” says Linehan evenly. “I just bought us a couple minutes.”

“And just what the fuck are we going to do with those minutes?”

But Linehan says nothing. He places his foot on one of the seats and hitches up a trouser leg. He runs his thumbs together down his shin. He digs deep. Something clicks. Part of his skin folds backward. His knee’s not the only hinge in his leg—and what’s within is mostly solid. And spongy. Linehan roots in there. Grasps something. Holds it up. Adjusts it.

“How the hell did you get that through?” asks Spencer.

“Because it’s the same density as the rest of me,” says Linehan. “Same visual readout too. I didn’t even need your Control’s help for this.”

“Your whole leg’s robotic,” says Spencer.

“Something like that,” says Linehan.

“How much of the rest of you is?” asks Spencer.

“Nowhere near enough to make me not care about my hide.” He pulls out more pieces. He finishes assembling the resultant rifle. He hands it to Spencer.

“Have at it.”

“What are you going to use?”

“This,” says Linehan. He reaches into his leg again. He removes what seems to be an auto-pistol and what seems to be a—

“Looks like a whip,” says Spencer.

“It should,” says Linehan. He seals his leg, puts his foot back on the floor. He strides to the door at the front of the car and works its manuals. It opens. The two men move through into the next car. It’s empty, apart from several bodies strewn in the aisle. From the marks on them they’ve been trampled. The door on the far end of this one is open. Through that door can be seen another empty car—and in the car beyond that, the rearmost elements of the fleeing passengers. A keening wail echoes in their wake.

“Looking good,” says Linehan.

“Yeah,” says Spencer, “it’s looking great.”

“Spare me your sarcasm,” says Linehan. He starts to move forward at a rapid clip. Spencer keeps pace with him. “Here’s an even better view.”

Two images appear in Spencer’s head. They’re A/V feeds from right in the midst of the masses of fleeing passengers, looking out upon their backs. It’s like a rugby scrum gone haywire. Each car into which the panic spreads means there’s that many more people trying to get through the next door. With the inevitable result that there’s as much fighting going on as there is fleeing.

“What the fuck,” says Spencer. Linehan grins.

“Those two I pulled aside? The bitch whose husband I shot? The dickless wonder I singled out for special treatment? The one went toward the front and the other went toward the rear. But I planted cameras on both of them while I was telling them who was boss. I was giving us a little bit of transparency, Spencer.”

“Into what?”

“Into the ones we’re fighting. You said your Control said they were behind and in front of us?”

“Right. Though he didn’t say why they didn’t just board at our car directly.”

“Because then we would have known something was up,” says Linehan. “Right? If there’s a disturbance at the place of boarding and we’re not at that place, who are we to be any the wiser? The plan clearly was to have the plainclothes agents arrest us and hustle us to the waiting vehicles. Minimum of fuss, minimum of effort.”

“And it backfired on them,” says Spencer.

“Hardly,” says Linehan. “Far as I can see, their plan’s working fine. The plainclothes were expendable. That was the point. The heavies are undoubtedly the ones based from the vehicles. Who have us trapped between them.”

“And where are they?”

“Delayed a little bit by the human tide, I expect,” says Linehan. “But only a little bit. In fact—hello.”

For now a new turbulence is engulfing the mass of people on the screen that’s showing what’s happening several cars behind them. People are stopping, being trampled by those on either side. People are diving into the seats on either side. The camera bearer almost goes down, gets shoved against a seat, manages to stay on his feet. The people in front of him are parting.

To reveal two suited figures standing in the doorway up ahead.

Each wears light powered armor. The armor looks to be U.S. military, but it features no insignia. Visors shimmer in the half-light.

“Into the seats,” says a voice. “Clear the fucking aisles. Or you all die.”

“They’re right behind us,” someone screams at him.

“We know,” says the second suit.

“But here’s what you don’t,” says Linehan.

They can’t hear him. But everyone on the train hears what Linehan does next. If only for a moment: Spencer watches as he hits a button on his wrist—and the whole scene dissolves in static. Spencer hears a loud boom toward the train’s rear. The whole car shakes—a shaking that intensifies, becomes an agony of reverberations. The emergency lights go out altogether. Spencer grasps his rifle in one hand, grasps the back of the nearest seat in the other. It struggles in his grip like a living thing.

“You’ve killed us all,” he says.

“You’re awfully vocal for a corpse,” says Linehan.

“You fucking mined that poor fuck.”

“And here I was thinking he spontaneously combusted. Let’s hit it.”

They’re rushing forward. They’re leaping bodies. They’re watching on their screens as the passengers somewhere in front of them keep on running for their lives. They’re carrying on their conversation all the while.

“How come we’re still alive?” says Spencer.

“Because we’re just too damn quick.”

“I mean how come your bomb didn’t kill us?”

“Because that’s the way they build these things,” says Linehan. “As modular as possible. Most explosives will do no more than depressurize a single train car. The engine blocks—the magnets—are designed to survive most blasts.”

“And that’s what just happened.”

“My bomb was a little more powerful than that,” says Linehan. “Probably knocked that whole rail into the ceiling. Not to mention causing one hell of a pileup behind the lucky car. We just got a hell of a lot shorter, Spencer.”

“You’re a fucking maniac.”

“As long as I live, I can live with that.”

“You just murdered hundreds of people!”

“But not the ones I’m trying to,” says Linehan.

And now they’re catching up with the fleeing passengers in front of them. They’re trailing them at a distance of just under a car, watching as they keep on screaming.

“Look at them go,” says Linehan.

“You’re enjoying this,” says Spencer.

“Gotta live for the moment,” replies Linehan.

He raises the auto-pistol, starts firing into the backs of the people in front of him. For a moment, Spencer’s tempted to whirl on him, beg that he stop, shoot him if he doesn’t. But only for a moment. Truth of the matter is that he doesn’t dare. It’s not even that he’s sure Linehan will turn on him if he has to. It’s more that he feels he’s already in too deep, already complicit. He wonders if he still holds out the hope that he can justify these deaths,