wonders if thinking along such lines is the worst crime of all. He realizes he still has no idea what Linehan’s plan is anyway.
So he asks.
“What makes you think I’ve got one?” says Linehan. He stops firing. Most of the targets have raced out of range. Those who remain are doing their utmost to get there.
“You’re certainly acting like it,” replies Spencer.
“That’s what improvisation’s all about,” says Linehan. “Better get ready to use that gun of yours.”
For a moment, Spencer thinks that Linehan has read his mind, figures that he’s about to turn on him. But then he realizes that what Linehan is referring to is the forward A/V feed. Flame’s gouting toward the screen. People in front of the woman to whom the camera’s been attached are burning. Through that flame, Spencer catches a glimpse of two more suited figures a car or two ahead, spraying out fire from nozzles atop their helmets.
“They’re killing everybody,” says Spencer.
“They’re not stupid,” says Linehan. “They’ve realized we’re using the passengers. They must know that’s the only way we could have got hi-ex right next to them.”
“Did you mine her too?”
“With something a little less powerful,” says Linehan. “Given that we’re behind her.”
“You’re a real piece of work.”
“Thanks.”
The woman’s been caught in the fires. They’re hot. They consume her quickly. They consume the camera too—Linehan hits the button. Snarls.
“Too late,” he says.
“Too bad,” says Spencer.
“Here they come.”
Running toward them are the rearmost passengers who’ve had the misfortune to be caught between the two sets of antagonists. Now they’re foremost in fleeing in the direction they’ve come.
“We need your bullets too, Spencer,” says Linehan as he opens up once more.
“I can’t do it,” says Spencer.
“Don’t you get it, man? They’re
The doomed are reversing direction once more—heading forward once again. But a few aren’t turning around. One dies at Linehan’s feet. One lunges toward Spencer—who fends off the lunge, strikes the man with his rifle butt, sends him sprawling. Linehan shoots him through the head, starts moving forward once again.
“I can’t take this anymore,” says Spencer.
“Want me to get it over for you?”
“Fuck you. I’m getting back into the zone.”
“I thought you said there was no zone to speak of.”
“There’s a zone alright. It’s just a mess. Wireless isn’t happening. Wires may be more reliable.”
“So jack in.”
“So I need to stop.”
“We can’t stop.”
“I didn’t say
He halts, pulls open a door. It leads to the facilities. It’s just a tiny chamber. But Spencer steps inside anyway. He pulls wires from his skull, pulls lights from fixtures. Linehan stares at him.
“We can’t split up,” he says.
“Want to bet?” says Spencer.
“Steel yourself,” says Linehan. “You’re Priam’s man. Do you think that Priam is above all this? That your side never uses innocents as weapons?”
“This isn’t about morality,” says Spencer. “It’s about strategy. We’ve got to get some zone coverage or we’ll never make it.”
“Oh,” says Linehan. “I get it. The quintessential razor—fine with anything as long as you’re doing it in zone. But get you out into the real world and you can’t even pull a goddamn trigger.”
“Shut up,” says Spencer. “Shut that door.”
“I’ll be back,” says Linehan.
“And I’ll watch your back,” replies Spencer. “Now get the fuck out of here.”
The door slams shut. Spencer stares at it—watches as it’s replaced in a single moment by a zone that’s just as fuzzy as it was before. Things still haven’t clarified. On the contrary: they’ve retreated still farther into shadow. The train’s one long blur. What’s beyond it is scarcely visible. There’s some intimation of something big somewhere farther out. Something that’s in motion. Spencer pictures a titanic struggle going on out there. He pictures himself as elusive, unattainable. He knows that’s about as false a picture as he can paint.
But now he can see shards of light glowing close at hand. There’s one about twenty cars up and one on the opposite side of the train, about fifteen cars back. They’re unmistakable.
They’re his fellow razors.
Only they’re not on his side. And they’re not on the train either. They’re in vehicles right alongside. The razors are shielding those vehicles’ exact specs. Spencer presumes there are other vehicles out there. Yet the zone’s awash with so much turbulence that it’s impossible for him to say for sure. Nor does he need to: he springs forward, cannons into two of them. Now he’s a battering ram surging. One of his targets gets his shields up in time.
The other doesn’t.
Spencer crumples through the defenses like they’re so much paper. He feels his sharpness tearing all the way through to the point where wires meet nerves. He burns those nerves, sears that brain. He slices open all that data.
And suddenly he’s presiding over several different views of the car that’s fifteen cars back from the one in which he’s hidden. Several different views through several different visors. But far more important than those views is the glimpse he’s now got into these men’s hearts. Spencer flares like lightning through their suit-comps, overrides them, makes them turn on each other with all their automated weapons. He destroys the whole squad that was attached to the gunship he’s just taken over. He revs up the ship’s controls. He’s ready to go places with it and the corpses it contains.
Only he’s not. Instead the ship’s getting shredded by gunfire from still another farther down the tunnel. Simultaneously he comes under attack from several other razors. They’re trying to triangulate on him. He’s searching for a way to get at them. He needs a better view. He rifles through the train’s systems. He still can’t get at its controls.
But what he can get at are its cameras. Suddenly he’s got access to the feeds from all eighty cars. Only it’s not eighty. Cars sixty-five and onward are gone. Cars number nineteen through twenty-eight have been scorched with fire. What’s left of the passengers in that section of the train are huddled amidst the seats of cars twenty-nine through thirty-three. Suited figures are moving up through twenty-seven and twenty-eight. There are five of them. The gunship from which they’ve come is moored at car number nineteen. It’s the one whose razor resisted Spencer’s onslaught. That razor’s shielding his men well. He’s trying to get out ahead of them. He’s trying to get into the cameras. But Spencer is blocking him—preventing him from seeing Linehan in car number thirty-four, preventing him from seeing Spencer himself in car number forty.
Spencer’s got a nasty feeling he’s been made anyway. His view into most of those cars is vanishing, and he can no longer see Linehan or his antagonists—or any of the cars save the ones immediately adjacent to the one he’s in. He’s coming under point-blank zone assault. Other razors are prising the train from his virtual fingers. The gunship behind him accelerates up the tunnel, climbing past the train’s cars, moving past the sixties, the fifties— the forties. It starts to slow down. It moves past car number forty-five. It stops at car number forty-one. Spencer can see it vaguely in the zone. He hurls himself against its razor. But that razor’s dug in. Spencer can’t break through.
All he can do is watch as though in a dream: the exterior door in car number forty-one slides open and suited figures emerge from a walkway that’s been extended from their gunship. They stride rapidly into car number forty. Spencer watches as they move toward the door behind which his body’s stored. He wants to jack out. He wants to run. He wants to stop them somehow. He doesn’t do any of those things. He just flings himself forward in one final
