backward. He’s starting to realize that he may not be able to win this quickly. He’s starting to suspect that Sarmax might still be stronger….
“Think you can teach the man who taught you everything?” says Sarmax. “Think you can stay alive long enough to receive one last lesson?” His jets intensify. Now the Operative’s being pushed back toward the trees. His feet leave furrows behind him in the dirt. “Well, here it is: I’m going to wrap you around that wood.” More jets come to life atop Sarmax’s back. The Operative crams more fuel into his own motors. He’s urging them beyond their safety threshold. They’re starting to overheat. He and Sarmax are starting to pick up speed. The trees rush toward them. The Operative feels his course change slightly as Sarmax steers him straight toward what looks to be the nearest and biggest of them. He feels his suit vibrate as Sarmax feeds still more power to his own. He hears Sarmax muttering about how easy this is going to be. He’s got a nasty feeling that the man is about to be proven right.
Yet as that tree fills his own rearview, he reverses his own jets’ thrust, adds his power to Sarmax’s own—but at a slightly different angle. The two men suddenly speed up, whip past the tree, shoot into the depths of the grove. Sarmax keeps trying to run the Operative into something solid. The Operative keeps managing to avoid anything other than a glancing blow. They crash together through the woods, leaving a tunnel of broken branches behind them. They rush out over the water. They charge headlong into the fungus garden, tear through it, bear down upon the larger woods beyond. The Operative knows he’s got to put some distance between himself and his opponent. His smaller weapons aren’t going to be a factor. His larger weapons are too close.
But he opens up with them anyway.
The only thing he can think of: sow the road ahead with pitfalls. He starts using up all the hi-ex in his bomb- rack, flinging grenades forward. Some of them arc upward toward the roof. Some of them lance off into the trees. All of them are aimed not that far ahead. The forest is about to get pummeled into driftwood. Sarmax can achieve the Operative’s death in there but only at the price of his own.
So he does what the Operative thought he would. He changes course—hard to the left. But the Operative’s not buying it. He’s just careening on forward. The two men strain against one another. Their path starts to curve to the left. But not at a sharp enough angle to avoid the impending blasts.
And Sarmax knows it. He does the only thing he can do. He lets go of the Operative, hits the brakes, lets the Operative blast onward into the kill zone. The grenades start to detonate. The Operative steers in among the explosions. He knows where they’re going to occur. He knows where they’re not. He hits his camo, turns off his own jets. He gets as low as he can, and moves into the undergrowth.
He’s not a moment too soon. Because now flame’s cascading down from on high. The Operative quickens his pace. On his screens he can see Sarmax behind him and fifty meters overhead, almost touching the roof’s moon, lighting up the artificial night with his jets, not bothering to camouflage himself as he rains rockets and flame down upon where he thinks the Operative is. The Operative feels himself bombarded by Sarmax’s sensors. He realizes he’s being hunted down like a dog.
So he turns at bay: flicks his wrists, sends micromissiles streaking upward from both arms and back even as his gun-rack fires on auto spray. He lets rip with his flamers too. What’s left of night vanishes. The Operative doesn’t wait to assess the damage—he dives back into the fungus. And makes haste through the water while the fires roar overhead. Most of his view’s blotted out by smoke. He wonders for a second if Sarmax has been caught within the blasts. He wonders if he’s going to have to try to recover the necessary software from what’s left of a charred skull. Maybe he’s going to have to tell Lynx he got a little too eager. He stands there on the island, looks out into the conflagration, sights his scopes, waits for something to move into one of a thousand crosshairs. But nothing does.
The ground starts to shake.
At first the Operative thinks it’s more explosions going off on the other side of the dome. But it’s not. Because the fires out there don’t seem to be rising. They seem to be sinking. It’s as though the dirt itself is getting burned away. What’s left of the tangled mass of vegetation is disappearing from view. The Operative feels the shaking beneath his feet intensify. The ground upon which he’s standing is very definitely tilting. He watches as the fungus garden starts to slope away from him. He can see exactly what’s happening. The floor of the place is collapsing. The foundations must have been burned or blasted away. But the blueprints show nothing beneath the dome save rock.
Which is beside the point right now. The Operative starts making for the other side of the island. Water sloshes beneath his feet, runs through channels where his and Sarmax’s boots carved trenches in the ground. There’s water pouring from the ceiling too. Sprinklers are going all out. The Operative stumbles toward the gazebo. It’s leaning to one side. But it’s still standing. The Operative pulls himself past it.
Which is when Sarmax strikes once more.
Tracers whip through the air. Rocket-propelled grenades streak in. The Operative hits his jets, shoots upward. Explosions tear at him from every side. He can hear Sarmax broadcasting to him. He’s not hearing anything coherent. He returns fire with everything he’s got.
For about a moment. But then something strikes him on the head. Hard. Concussion sweeps against him. He feels himself being shoved downward. He realizes that what’s left of the dome’s inner roof is collapsing. That the outer roof might be coming with it. He hears Sarmax laughing. The ground’s folding up beneath the Operative. He feels everything above him bearing him down like an avalanche. He’s riding that debris, running downward over it, fighting for consciousness all the while. And now he’s through into more space—charging through underground corridors that undulate as the landslide that contains the garden’s contents piles down into them. Somehow he keeps moving. Somehow he’s not crushed.
And at last those vibrations die away behind him. He figures that he’s chosen the right way by virtue of the fact that he’s still breathing. He figures that Sarmax is one step ahead of him—figures, too, that the man has more defenses down here. He reaches a fork. One passage slopes up, the other down. He chooses the latter, starts along it.
As he does so, he hears a rumbling. A large section of rock is descending behind him. What’s driving it is clearly mechanical. He almost hits the jets on reverse to try to beat it. But he doesn’t. Instead he charges forward, racing down the tunnel, using his hands and feet at intervals to push himself off the walls, floors, ceiling. He’s trying to stay unpredictable. He’s scanning every centimeter of those surfaces. When he starts to notice nozzles here and there, he isn’t surprised. They could be sensors. They could be weapons. Either way, he’s starting to feel like he’s getting warm.
And when he hears the voice of Leo Sarmax, he knows it for certain.
“Carson, Carson, Carson,” says the voice. “Did you miss me?”
It’s broadcast from the nozzles. It echoes in the Operative’s head. He doesn’t speak. Just listens. Just keeps rushing forward. Just keeps watching every centimeter of the walls…
“That’s good,” says the voice. “Real good, Carson. Had to ask, you understand. Even though you won’t answer. Let me assume, though, that answer’s the same as it was before: no and yes.”
The Operative just stares. He’s beyond blinking now. He’s gotten to the point where reflex and intuition blur. He reaches another fork. He doesn’t slow. He makes his choice, accelerates.
“Yes and no,” continues Sarmax, “no and yes. Can’t say I blame you. It was bad enough when I got here. It’s much worse now.”
Half fall, half dive: the Operative tumbles down a stairway in one motion. He vaults off the last step, roars down the new corridor like some avenging angel. He pours fire in his wake. He gets ready to pour fire out before him.
“Because the truth,” says Sarmax, “is that this whole game is going up for grabs. This whole scene is getting out of hand. And we, old friend, are right in the middle of it.”
Now the Operative comes shooting out into a wider space. It’s still a corridor but it’s twice as wide and twice as deep as any of its predecessors. It harbors far more choices, too: openings of every size and shape hewn into every one of its surfaces. The Operative feels like he’s been here before, like he’s in a dream.
But he isn’t.
“So we got to change it up,” says Sarmax. “We got to take you off the fucking
All the nozzles in the space open up on the Operative. He’s getting it from all sides. Lasers sear against him. Bullets are right behind, albeit a little slower. Too slow: for now he’s charging down a side corridor, smoke
