“Can you be more specific?”
“Participation in the conspiracy called Autumn Rain.”
“What?”
“Where’s their fucking base, Carson?”
“Give me a fucking break,” says the Operative. “How high up are you guys? You’ve apprehended a fucking
“The only thing that’s about to get taken apart is what I’m looking at. The Throne’s been getting so careless lately. So delinquent it makes me sick. No wonder all its investigations managed to get themselves rat- fucked.”
“Only rat who’s getting fucked is you. We know the Rain’s inside you. I’m probably speaking to them even now.”
“That’d be every time you look in a mirror, Carson. Who was giving you your orders?”
The Operative says nothing.
“Who’s your fucking
The Operative’s waiting for the knives to burn back to life inside him. He wonders if this is all some virtual construct. Or one of Lynx’s tricks. But now a face appears before him. It’s a hologram floating in the air. Oversized ears. Antique opticals. Silver hair.
And grinning mouth.
“Ever seen this man before?”
The Operative tries to look unsurprised. He tries to blank his mind.
“That’s what we thought,” says the voice. “We know this is the man who was feeding you orders in the speakeasies. A real piece of work.” Data starts to swirl around the Operative’s head. Data speeds up. Six lines of symbols freeze amidst the myriad rush, spring in toward the Operative.
“I could explain the significance of each of those transactions to you, but we both know you already know what they mean. And if you don’t, then you just won the patsy of the fucking year award. So let’s just talk about the sum total of those moves. The detonation of a fission device in downtown Congreve would have wrecked everybody’s day. Except, apparently, yours.”
“Listen,” says the Operative, “this is a setup. It’s bullshit.”
“Oh, it’s bullshit alright. What the fuck is your problem, Carson? What in Christ’s name possessed you to lift your blade against the common cause? What did the Rain offer you that was worth your turning your back on everything?”
“You may as well get back to what you were doing with my nerve endings.”
“It’s not going to be that simple, Carson. I’m just the warm-up act.”
“Yeah?”
“We’re taking you upstairs.”
“To L2?”
“I said
“Bringing me right down to your level,” says the Operative. “I can’t wait.”
But the voice says nothing. The lights diminish. They leave the Operative in darkness. The seconds tick by. They start to make inroads on the minutes.
“Hello?”
But there’s no answer. The Operative sits there. He wonders if they’ve bagged Sarmax. He wonders if they’ve bagged Lynx. He wonders if either of them set him up. He wonders if he really
The needles slide from his body. The straps around him unfold. He’s unimpressed.
“You know what, guys? You’re fucking boring me.”
But there’s no answer. The seconds tick by. The Operative pulls himself to his feet. As he does so, dim lights spring to life along the walls. A door on the one opposite opens. The Operative walks to it, goes on through.
Now he’s in a corridor. Lights blink along the floor. They’re running from right to left. So he turns that way, walking carefully. He has no idea what the hell’s going on. But he figures he may as well make the most of it.
A door opens on the wall to his left. Simultaneously, the lights on the floor change direction, blink toward it.
So he stops. He peers carefully inside. It’s a storage chamber. It’s full of compartments. All are open. All are empty.
Except for the one that holds the suit.
The Operative walks in. The door slides shut. He goes to the suit. It’s civilian, bereft of armaments and markings. It’s open in the back. He takes the hint: climbs in, activates it. It closes in around him.
“About fucking time,” says the voice of Stefan Lynx.
“What the
“What’s going on is jailbreak. You drive, I’ll navigate.” The door slides open. “Make your first two lefts and make it snappy.”
The Operative gets moving. He goes out the door, turns left.
“Lynx.”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve had it with this. What are you up to?”
“Telling you to shut up.”
The Operative makes the next left. As he does so, Lynx gives him more directions: a right, another left, a stairway up. More passages. More stairs. He gets stopped on more than one occasion, downloads ID from out of nowhere. He arrives in a garage. He moves to the vehicle Lynx indicates, gets in, drives away into what turns out to be Congreve. A map appears on the dashboard next to him. A route traces through grids.
“Dump it in the parking lot on Sixth Avenue,” says Lynx. “Leave the suit there too. Get on the blue line underhaul. Get off at Little Kensington.”
“That’s where Sarmax’s house is.”
“Exactly. That’s where you’re going.”
“That doesn’t sound very safe.”
“Said the guy who’s running around in a suit which may as well have STOLEN FROM MAXIMUM SECURITY spray-painted on the side. But cheer up, Carson: I’ve got you covered. They got you on the sting. I got them on the hack. They knew you were up to something. But they couldn’t figure out what. So they just hit you with the worst possible charges. And we just beat the rap. I’ve switched your identity about five times in the last five minutes. And there’s a lot more to talk about but it’s going to have to wait till we can do it on Sarmax’s private lines. I managed to cover our traces there too. Now how about you go back to shutting the fuck up.”
The Operative tells Lynx to fuck himself. And says nothing more. He just lets Congreve’s skyline stream past his visor. Fifteen minutes later, he’s walking through the residences of Little Kensington. Five minutes after that he reaches Sarmax’s door. He goes on through, takes the elevator up to the study.
To find Sarmax sitting in front of at least fifty different screens. He has his feet up. He doesn’t turn around.
“Where the fuck have you been?” he asks.
“We need to talk.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” says Leo Sarmax.
* * *
B ut they’re starting to get the idea. They’re standing in another tunnel mouth, looking out upon the plateau where the Flats begin. That plateau’s so high up it’s drenched in cloud. Mist is everywhere. Searchlights pierce the mist, flicker this way
