“Seventy-five seconds,” says Morat.
“Raise your thinking.” Lilith gestures at the screens. “We’re no ordinary conquerors. Our rule will take humanity to the next level. We’ll do what nations never could. End injustice. End war. Harness the resources of the solar system. We’ll colonize Sol’s farthest planets inside a generation. We’ll start in upon the universe in no time at all. We’re capable of anything. Especially now we have the Manilishi.”
“I thought you said there
“Actually,” says Hagen, “there is.”
She looks at him.
“It’s you,” says Morat.
Her head jerks up to meet his eyes. He’s still sitting at the top of the stairs. His face is still expressionless. She looks away, stares at the three who stand about her in the center of the room. There’s just under a minute remaining on the counter.
R ising in the heart of mountain is a man-made peak. It looks out onto a simulation of a sky whose stars cluster into constellations that hung above the Earth more than a thousand years ago. Back before those interlopers arrived from across the sea. Back before they set all that followed into motion.
“But tonight we reverse that tide at last,” says Paynal.
Spencer tries to focus on him. It’s not easy. Jeweled birds and jade-eyed cats keep on crowding out his vision. He feels himself dragged onto the altar slab. He hears Linehan cursing. He hears a voice drowning out those curses.
“Spare us your oaths,” says the Jaguar leader. “Nothing you say can stop us now. In moments we burn the liquid fuel that sits within our missiles. But first we rip out your living hearts. And let your spirits race our weapons out into eternity.”
Spencer tries to focus on those words. But they’re drowned out by the wreckage of his own thoughts. Was he really an American agent all along? Was he a Priam operative who got co-opted? He knows that both those lives are closing on the same death. He knows he’s about to run the only border that ever mattered. He hears the leader of the Jaguars speaking in the tones of ritual. He sees the knife being raised above him.
Destiny approaches,” says Matthias.
His face has vanished from the screen. It’s been replaced by video of men running away from one of the heavy lasers. Makeshift power plants tremble. Rising from the floor is a barrel five times the length of a man. It’s pointed at a hole in the ceiling. It looks like it’s ready to fire any moment.
“Light to run the gauntlet of the mirrors in that laser,” says Matthias. “Straight onto a Eurasian mirror-sat that’s overhead. And from there into the midst of the L2 fleet. That mirror-sat may just end up being the most expensive single item in the Coalition’s budget. Given what it’s about to visit upon them. To say nothing of the nine other cannons I’m watching on the screens you don’t see.”
“Those aren’t soldiers,” says the Operative.
“No,” replies Matthias. “They’re convicts. And all the more expendable for it.”
“Sure,” says the Operative. “And what about the ‘convicts’ that Autumn Rain snuck onto that fucking Elevator? Had you considered that?”
Matthias doesn’t reply.
“And what about those fucking tunnels beneath us?
“Enough,” says Matthias. “Watch.”
* * *
T he last of Haskell’s memories pour across her. She feels her whole being caught up in that rush. She feels latent powers within her activating. She’s trembling uncontrollably. She’s backing up against the wall.
“Is this real,” she whispers. “
“It’s real,” says Lilith. “
“Tell me what I
“We’ve never ceased to love you,” says Lilith. “Now you know how much we need you too. And why Sinclair kept you for himself. You’re the biocomputer Manilishi that was commissioned as the capstone on the Autumn Rain experiment. The combination of surgery and genetics that nobody has ever replicated. Invincible by virtue of the intuition that allows you to compensate for the time that data takes to travel within the Earth-Moon system. You’re the ultimate razor, Claire. And you’ve only just started to tap your powers.”
“I need to sit down,” mutters Haskell.
They lead her to a chair. The world spins about her. Her past comes rushing up to claim her. She feels a need for zone unlike any she’s ever known. She feels a kinship with those around her that’s stronger than anything she’s ever felt.
Or remembered.
“I
“Yes, Claire,” says Marlowe. He strokes her cheek.
“I’m scared.”
“You’re a god,” replies Lilith.
“That’s why I’m scared.”
“Break past it,” says Hagen. “Break in there and run zone coverage on our hit teams.”
“Augment the power of the U.S. first strike,” says Lilith.
“Fifteen seconds,” says Morat.
“It’ll be a better world,” says Marlowe. “It’ll be
“I will,” she whispers. What’s left of her resistance drops away. “God help me, I will.”
“Then jack in,” he replies.
She does. Everything looms before her.
F aces loom above Spencer. Cats and humans and moons and gods and all of it rolled up into one voice:
“The land in which you die is the oldest one of all. That which you call South America and which we know as the world’s own navel. Take comfort in the fact that your blood shall water such blessed green. Even as it frees the people that time itself enslaved.”
“If I don’t kill you in this life, I’ll do it in the next,” says Spencer evenly.
“Take these chains off and fight me like a man!” screams Linehan.
“Commence launch sequence,” says Paynal.
A vast rumbling starts up all around.
The heavy laser vanishes, replaced by a close-up of the L2 fleet. The Operative stares at it. He looks at all those ships and sats and stations arranged in interlocking formations around that libration point. He zeroes in upon the ship that sits within the formation’s center.
The screen goes blank.
The door opens. A SpaceCom marine in full armor enters the room.
“Are you my executioner?” says the Operative.
“Not quite,” says Leo Sarmax, throwing back his visor.
“But we’ve got a lot of people that need dying fast,” says the voice of Stefan Lynx.
A massive explosion shakes the base.
