Mirrored Heavens

straight into his head. He’s disaggregating all its parts. He’s highlighting all its components. He’s focusing on one in particular.

“It’s nuclear,” breathes Spencer.

“Tactical,” says Linehan. “But still overkill.”

“They’ll collapse this fucking tunnel.”

“I don’t think they care, Spencer. I think they just want to be sure.”

“Why doesn’t it detonate right now?”

“Like I just said, Spencer: they want to be sure. They want it closer. And they’re going to ride it straight up to our fucking bumper unless you floor this bitch like she’s never been floored before.”

Spencer does. They roar forward. All the while taking stock of what’s behind them.

“Four point six klicks back.”

“And closing.”

Not quite as quickly as before. But still just as inexorably. Their rear guns may as well not even be there for all the effect they’re having. There may as well be nothing in the universe save hunter and target.

Only there is. Because the gap between the walls on either side is getting wider. The rails are sprouting more rails. The tunnel’s starting to fork into still more tunnels.

“The warrens,” says Linehan.

“We might make it yet,” says Spencer.

“What’s our route?”

“Follow the main line straight on through.”

“That won’t work.”

“Why?”

“We need to shake this fucker off. And we’re not going to do it in the straight.”

“Get anywhere else but the straight and it’ll catch us.”

“Give me the fucking map.”

“I already did, asshole. It’s in your head. You want a different itinerary, you better name it fast.”

“Let’s hit the Yards,” says Linehan.

“That’s insane.”

“So is doing nothing while a missile overhauls you.”

“You don’t get it,” says Spencer. “Whatever hack Control’s got in place extends only to the main tunnel and its auxiliary lines. The Newfoundland Yards are neither. We venture in there and we’re going to set off every single alarm and then some.”

“I don’t think you’re grasping our situation,” replies Linehan.

Another train takes that moment to charge on by. It roars westward on an adjacent track. It’s at least a hundred cars long, another transatlantic haul. It’s impossible to tell if those who steer it are aware of the chaos all around them. The missile darts sideways to avoid it, loses a fraction of a second in so doing. Its afterburners fire. It draws in upon its target like it’s being pulled in upon a string.

“What else we got for speed?” says Linehan.

“We got nothing.”

“Than we got nothing to lose. And even if we do survive what’s about to happen, every alarm down here is about to go off at full fucking volume anyway. Least we can do is hope we’re around to hear it.”

He double-clicks onto the map. It lights up both their minds. The Yards are winding in toward them. They’re sprawling out on all sides. They’re as messy as any boomtown. Their topography’s complex.

“We turn off onto the local line there,” says Linehan. He forwards coordinates to Spencer. “We fire the decoys down the main when we do so. Hopefully it’ll follow them and not us.”

“And if there’s something on that local line?”

“We’ll never know it.”

“And if that thing behind us follows us and not our decoys?”

“We go straight through the main districts and back into the tunnels.”

“The main districts?”

“There’s nothing to stop us. Most of the local lines intersect with them. They’re basically one big cave.”

“Filled with a lot of shit.”

“But this thing we’re in’s not bound to the rails, Spencer.”

“It’s not a question of propulsion. It’s a question of maneuvering. Anything that’s more than about two degrees off the straight is going to be too much for us right now. We can’t afford to put on the brakes any further.”

“Good. Because we’re not going to. Ten seconds, Spencer. You ready?”

And Spencer is. He’s ready to live out the last seconds of his life. He’s got himself immersed just enough in the zone to see the myriad threads that constitute the Yards. He wonders for a moment if they’re being herded into it by what’s behind them. He wonders what else is out there still. He wonders just what the man he’s with is worth.

Besides a nuke.

“If that thing detonates in the Yards, it’ll kill tens of thousands.”

“Maybe,” says Linehan. “But at least I’m not asking you to kill them this time. I’m not even asking you to watch.”

He gestures at the screens upon which the missile’s closing. But Spencer’s not even looking. He’s just tweaking the magnets, letting the craft press up against the left-hand rails, forcing it away from the right-hand ones. It eases off the straight onto a crossover rail. It bends along that rail toward the wall.

Except suddenly there’s no wall.

Or rather: there is. But now it’s shifted five meters to the left. And in that space, another rail is sprouting away from the leftward main track. The craft curves along it. Spencer fires balls of flame and countermeasures from the forward guns. They roar down the leftward line.

Which encloses their craft within a much smaller tunnel. But only for a moment, and then they charge out of the branch line and into a wider tunnel. Spencer slots the ship in along the rails. He slings them at lightning speed along this new straight. He sees no obstructions whatsoever.

“We made it,” breathes Linehan.

“Eye of the needle.”

“Ah fuck.”

The missile’s emerged through the tunnel they’ve just come through. It’s less than a klick back now. It’s roaring in toward them far more quickly than before.

“Fuck’s sake,” says Linehan.

They’re well within the confines of the Yards now. Rows of doors that lead to airlocked stations are streaking by. The tunnel’s now a translucent tube. Beyond it they can see a far wider space. They shift along more rails. They streak through more tubes. They can see the intimations of architecture all around. They can see the flame of the missile behind them. It’s only half a klick back now. Spencer’s realizing that Linehan’s plan is for shit. They can’t destroy the thing that’s chasing them. They can’t outrun it. They can’t outmaneuver it. They can’t shake it. They streak out of translucence and back into solid.

Which is when something finally clicks in Spencer’s mind. It’s something that’s been getting in his way. And now it drops away. He doesn’t want to see it go. It’s the last of his moral scruples. And now it’s gone. Leaving him in search of something else. Something that’s buried in this town’s systems. He runs his mind parallel to the route of his body. He brushes up against a lever that triggers a door. It’s one of thousands throughout this complex. It’s intended to forestall emergency flooding should the seabed overhead rupture. Now it slides shut behind them. They have a fraction of a second to secure additional distance from the door.

Before the missile hits it.

That nuke’s got next to nothing in the way of EMP. It harbors only modest force. But it’s all relative. Because the seabed’s being shaken to pieces. Half the Yards just got caved in. The ocean’s been left to do the rest.

“Holy fuck,” says Spencer.

“We’re gone,” says Linehan.