Mirrored Heavens

“You shouldn’t,” the man says. “I’m Sinclair’s man in HK.”

They stare at him. Haskell’s first to find her voice.

“How’d you find us?”

“Sit down,” the man says.

They sit. He gazes at them. He shakes his head.

“I found you because I’m a handler. I know agents. I brief them. Track them when I have to. Snuff them when I must.”

“Going to try that on us?” asks Marlowe.

“No. All I wanted to do is locate you.”

“But how did you do that?” persists Haskell.

“I’ve got the edge,” says the man. “I’ve got everything on you two. Your psych profiles, for one—which way you move when under pressure. That helped. But it wasn’t as useful as your neutral accounts. Figured you’d go back to those. I mean, what else could you have done?”

“You’re lying,” says Marlowe. “Those weren’t even the accounts you gave us. Those were the ones I set up last time I was in the neutrals.”

“We’re not stupid, Jason. We know how our agents do it when they get out beyond the border. We know you think you live longer if you don’t link to us. We’re not even against insurance policies. Doesn’t mean we don’t like to keep an eye on things.”

“If you have those account numbers, then Morat might have them too,” says Haskell. “He had access to every code you’ve given us as well. So why should we trust you?”

“Trust me,” says the man. “If I were trying to nail you they’d have kicked down your door already. Nailing people’s easy. Saving them’s the hard part. I’m changing up the codes even as I speak. I’m here because you’ve got a new mission. I’m the one who’s going to tell you all about it. Besides: don’t you want to know what’s really going on?”

“What happened on that spaceplane?” demands Haskell.

“You know damn well what happened,” replies the man. “Morat betrayed us. He helped the Rain to jack it.”

“Why?” asks Haskell.

“Surely it wasn’t to get at the two of us,” says Marlowe.

“Actually, I’m sure that was part of the reason. But it wasn’t the main one.”

“What was the main one?”

The handler smiles mirthlessly. “The main one was the cargo you were carrying.”

“I didn’t know we were carrying anything,” says Marlowe.

“Of course you didn’t.”

“What,” says Haskell slowly, “are you talking about?”

“Like I just said: I’m talking about the fact that you were carrying a cargo.”

“And are you going to tell us what the fuck it was?”

“That’s not an easy question to answer,” says the handler. “In fact, I’m not even sure I can answer it. What you have to understand is that Sinclair was intending to take the fight to Autumn Rain. He put all his primary agents into the field. And he emptied out the research labs of anything that even looked like it had any promise. Every black-ops project, every R&D prototype—all of it got deployed.”

“Which,” says Marlowe, “was exactly what the Rain wanted.”

“Chalk one up to hindsight,” says the handler. “The plan was to assign an artifact to each team. You were one such squad. When you reached the Moon, your briefing was to encompass that artifact’s activation. We couldn’t transport it out of sight of those we trusted most. But we weren’t going to tell you about it until you absolutely had to know.”

“But you were going to tell Morat.”

“We don’t know what happened to Morat. We don’t know how he found out what he did. We don’t know how he broke loose. It calls into question every—”

“Never mind that crap,” says Haskell. “Tell us what was on that plane.”

“Next-generation AI,” replies the handler. “A comp that combined state-of-the-art battle management capability with the ability to do zone incursions far beyond the level of our best razors.”

“Oh,” says Haskell.

“Oh. What was on that plane was the ultimate machine for waging secret war. And not just secret, either. Situate it in an inner enclave, and you could vector a first strike through the thing. All housed in a highly mobile chassis.”

“It moves?”

“In point of fact, it bailed out.”

They look at him. Look at each other.

“Why so surprised?” asks the handler. “After all, that’s what you did.”

“Sure,” says Marlowe, “but that’s different.”

“Is it?”

“What kind of chassis? Is this thing humanoid?”

“That’s the problem,” says the handler. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“There’s nothing on file?” asks Marlowe.

“The file’s name is Manilishi. But Morat must have tampered with the documentation because now all we’ve got is the name. And this.” For a moment, the handler’s face is replaced with shots of a crippled, smoking spaceplane hurtling down toward the city—and a close-up on a small object ejecting from its rear. Further magnification reveals a cylinder, spinning end over end on a diagonal slant, disappearing beneath the draped-over canopy of buildings.

“I thought there were no escape pods,” says Haskell.

“That’s not an escape pod,” says the handler. “It’s a fuel tank. It contained the Manilishi. Which somehow got activated in the fighting. Maybe it just woke up. It must have ejected from that pod once it fell into city shadow. We had no cameras on it when it did. All we’ve got are some anomalies in the HK zone that occurred at the point it landed.”

“What kind of anomalies?”

“Cameras suddenly seeing nothing. Backup routines being activated for no good reason. All the usual signs of something covering its traces. Our men found what was left of the fuel tank. But that was all they found.”

“This is absurd,” says Haskell. But even as she says it, she’s thinking. About hidden compartments and places not yet seen. About covert agendas. About how easy it might have been for something as mobile as it is smart to lie low, let the interlopers go after the more obvious targets, wait for that moment. Maybe it came at Morat’s apogee of gloat. Maybe it came when Marlowe reappeared. One thing’s for sure, though.

What happened next must have been perfect.

“My suggestion is that you assume this thing has all the physical attributes of heavy powered armor,” says the handler. “Camo, flight, fight—you name it. And that’s on top of its zone prowess.”

“Jesus,” says Haskell.

“Not quite. But close. And the fact that it’s on the loose is a major fucking problem.”

“Why doesn’t it just call home?” asks Marlowe.

“Maybe it doesn’t want to.”

“You’re saying it’s gone rogue?”

“It might have. Under the trauma. Or it might have been captured by the Rain despite its best efforts. All we know is that it hasn’t reported in. And that we absolutely, positively fucking have to have it back.”

“And you want us to go get it?”

“No,” says the handler, “I want you to shove your head through this fucking screen.”

“Fuck your sarcasm,” says Marlowe. “Why us? I would have thought we were marked for arrest.”

“You are.”

Marlowe stands up.