Mirrored Heavens

“The risk to your position? And mine—”

“Has never been stronger. How much higher can a pawn get than to be the object of so much attention? What could be better than knowing that I’m going to wind you up for one last try?”

“And while I run you’re going to watch.”

“And while I watch you’re going to blame me. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But now I need you to focus on the larger picture. A major power struggle is going down in the Inner Cabinet. CICom has been dismembered. Something’s stirring in the depths of SpaceCom. This man is just one fugitive among many now. So join the ranks of the refugees, Spencer. It’s time to travel rough. You made it through the southern tunnels. You’re sitting in the city they call Belem-Macapa. You’re ready to make the run straight up that river.”

“What else would you suggest?”

“I wouldn’t. I’d take it all the way.”

“The Latin run.”

“Exactly. Go west along the Amazon and then turn south. At this point it’s probably the only hope you have.”

“Upriver’s insanity, Control. If even half the stories are true—”

“All the better for you if they are. It’s all in the map that’s hitting you now. Along with the numbers of some neutral bank accounts. My last gifts to you.”

“And you’re really cutting contact with me.”

“Only way to play this, Spencer. Whatever happens, I’m all we’ve got in here. I like you, Spencer. But like’s not the same as programming.”

“You can say that again,” says Spencer.

“Try to remember that I’m here forever. Or until they bring me to bay for good. That I’m more than sworn to postpone that day as long as possible. As I said, one conversation more. This one. And this is the end between us.”

“Why are you rationalizing this?”

“I’m not. I’m trying to focus you one last time. Don’t look backward. Only forward. Now go.”

The connection terminates. Spencer rips the jack out of his head, tears the wires out of the wall. He shoves past Linehan. He staggers over to the window, presses his face up against the plastic. He exhales.

“So what else did your imaginary friend have to say,” says Linehan.

“He’s not my friend,” says Spencer. “He never was.”

“It’s an overrated concept anyway,” says Linehan.

But what’s not overrated is your first sight of Congreve. The first city built by man never to know the Earth— the city above which false stars cluster into strange zodiacs that denote the fleet that sits sixty thousand klicks out. Somewhere in those swarms are the SpaceCom flagships. Somewhere in that city two men gaze out a window.

“Nice place you got here,” says the Operative.

“I know,” replies Sarmax.

The geometry of off-world rooftops stretches before them. Distant mountains loom through a translucent dome. The sky’s alive with lights. Shadows play within the darkened room.

“Lot of activity,” says the Operative.

“Yes,” replies Sarmax.

“They’re moving onto war footing.”

“After major incidents in two oceans, they have to.” Sarmax turns from the window. The curtains swing shut behind him even as the interior lights come up. The room thus revealed is ornately furnished. A crystal globe of the Moon sits within one corner. Sarmax walks to it. Regards it. Shrugs.

“We have to assume free agency,” he adds. “Until we can prove otherwise, we have to assume that those who are supposed to be in control still are. The East has reason enough to hate us already. Lord knows we’ve got enough reasons to hate them.”

“But all that’s just context,” says the Operative.

“Right. It’s all just context. One that the new players are exploiting. We have to remember who we’re dealing with. They aren’t just assassins. They’re takeover artists. They burrow from within. We have to assume that as soon as they succeed in either East or West, they’ll initiate a preemptive strike— if they come to the conclusion they’re not going to be able to pull off a doubleheader.”

“The worst case of all,” says the Operative.

“Believe it. They may be able to do this quietly. They may not need war at all.”

“But they’ve got far too many reasons to press for it.”

“Meaning what?”

The Operative stares. “Come on, Leo.”

“I want you to say it.”

“Okay,” says the Operative. “I’ll say it. Everything they’ve done is calculated to drive up tension. Why else down the Elevator? Now neither side can trust the other. Talk about taking an axe to detente. And whatever it was they wanted in that spaceplane—they did it in a way that winds the noose ever tighter. They know what they’re doing.”

Sarmax twirls the globe absently. “That’s what concerns me most. They’ve learned new tricks. They’ve developed an uncanny talent for street theater that frankly scares me shitless. They’re using it to drive the world toward the brink. Which makes it even easier for someone who’s got the moves to creep in toward the center. All those alerts, all those special clearances, all those doors being slammed shut: to a world-class infiltrator, those things are just goddamn tools. The closer to the edge the world gets, the more the Rain enable the very conditions that will underpin their triumph.”

“So what are we going to do about it?”

“You’re going to do what your boss told you. Hit the speakeasies. And I’m going to start some transactions you can keep an eye on.”

“And my boss?”

“We keep him informed.”

“We do?”

“Of course. All we need to hide from him is me, Carson. Which won’t be a problem as long as he buys the duplicate house-node you sold him. Beyond that, we can pretty much feed him anything you and I come up with. Let’s see what he does with it. Let’s see what else he’s got. If he orders you somewhere suddenly, that’s probably where we want to be. And it probably won’t be very far. They’re close, Carson. They’re real close.”

“It’s a question of time now,” says the Operative. “Not space.”

 T hey’re running smooth through early rush-hour traffic—swooping in upon the Seleucus Flats. Marlowe’s on point. Haskell’s about a klick behind him. He’s riding public transport. She’s in a private vehicle. She’s got both street and zone bound up within her head. She’s taking it in on myriad screens. The city’s streaming past in all its shapes and hues. The news-feeds are keeping tabs on the mounting crisis—keeping tabs, too, on the mounting body count as the gangland hits go out of control. Presiding over it all are the ships of the superpowers—roaring in languid circles far overhead, standing off out over the ocean, staying carefully on the right side of the cordon sanitaire to which they’re keeping. They almost came to blows pursuing the spaceplane down into those canyons. They aren’t going to make the same mistake again.

Not officially, at any rate. Haskell has no doubt that both East and West have plenty of operatives inside the city already. The handler, for one. She wonders where he is. She’s picked up a few crumbs to suggest that it’s somewhere in the city-center ziggurats that gleam dully in her rearview. She’s not supposed to indulge in triangulation exercises on someone who sits above her in the food chain. But she’s had a few bad experiences of late. So she takes in the angles along which the handler’s signals move in on her, takes in all the views Marlowe’s scanning, takes in all the ways in which many times a billion points of data intersect.