The Burning Skies

“Ah. Codes I gave you. And footage from within the plane Morat jacked. Taken by your ocular cameras, I presume—is he dead, by the way?”

“Yes,” she says. “He’s dead.”

“Did he die well?”

“Not particularly.”

“Did you kill him?”

“Yes.”

“With news like that, you’re welcome here anytime. With or without those codes establishing that you’re probably Claire. But even if you’re not her, you’re still welcome to anything I have to say. I’ve told the Throne everything anyway. I’m finished, as you can see. My life is over.”

“Then why are you still alive?”

“Because Andrew has yet to use that laser—the one through which you’re projecting your face—as a blowtorch against my head.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“That’s too bad.”

“You call the Throne by his first name.”

“And I daresay I earned the privilege. I’ve known him for fifty years. Long before he became president. We used to be midshipmen, you know. Back in the final days of the old navy. Back before we laid the foundations of what was to become NavCom. I remember when—”

“Do I look like I came here to listen to an old man reminiscing?”

“You’d deny me my memories?”

“You denied mine.”

“Only so you could become what you are.”

“And I’ll never forgive you for it.”

“I don’t ask for your forgiveness, Claire. All I require is what’s beyond your power to preclude: my own recollections. The foundations of NavCom—I remember so well the blueprints of those ships, the likes of which the world had never seen. Floating fortresses to replace carriers. Submarines that could ride supercavitation at hundreds of klicks an hour. I tell you, Claire, when I was the nation’s chief spymaster, I often yearned for those simpler times.”

“Why did the Throne make you head of CICom?”

“Because he and I could practically complete each other’s sentences. And because he wanted at least one source of unwavering support in the Inner Cabinet. He knew I’d never betray him.”

“But you did betray him.”

“I was the only one who was true to him.”

“Is that how you rationalize it?”

“He used to have such dreams, Claire. He alone understood what was required. Ironic, isn’t it? The military is acknowledged at long last as the only force that can save the country—and promptly finds itself undone by its own straitjacketed imagination. Only one man was capable of rising above that. Andrew Harrison opened my eyes. He showed me that the problem wasn’t how to win a second cold war. The problem was how to transcend that problem. How to channel human energy into goals worthy of humanity. How to solve Earth’s energy and environmental crisis once and for all. Thus the repurposing of our military machines. Detente was a mere stepping stone along the way. Andrew’s ultimate agenda was to lay the groundwork for a new civilization.”

“That sounds a lot like what the Rain claimed to want.”

“That’s no coincidence. It’s the inevitable goal of any mind able to break free of the cage that passes for conventional thinking. The real question lies in the new world’s contours. And the Rain is precisely where Andrew went wrong.”

“But he created them.”

“No, Claire. I created them. He merely signed off on them.”

“And the order for their termination.”

“Indeed. He’d become convinced that the elite commando unit we’d built to hit the East’s leadership in the event of a final war was about to target him.”

“And was he wrong in thinking that?”

“You know, you really are Claire.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because this conversation is proceeding exactly as you would conduct it. The oblique probing about the past. The gradual revealing to me of what’s going on outside this room. The gradual closing in upon the question you’re really dying to ask.”

“After the Throne had the Praetorians eliminate Autumn Rain, did you maintain a link to the surviving members who later downed the Elevator?”

Sinclair’s mouth creases upward in something that’s well short of smile.

“Yes,” he says. “I did.”

“You’ll just come right out and admit it.”

“As I’ve told you, I have nothing to hide. Not anymore.”

“So tell me why you—”

“It’s strange, Claire. We thought that the world was ours. He was president, and I was his right-hand man, and we were only in our forties. We would either defeat the East or reach accommodation with them, and then move on to greater things. But when he ordered Autumn Rain’s destruction I came up against the limitations of his vision. I saw that I had surpassed him, that he would never green-light humanity’s successors. I realized that the sooner I ruled in his place, the quicker I would be able to finish the task he started.”

“But you’d already turned on him, Matthew.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning Harrison was right: Autumn Rain was targeting him all those years ago. What he didn’t know was that it was on your orders. Right?”

Sinclair says nothing. She laughs.

“Though I bet he’s figured it out since. So, in other words, you tried to assassinate him back then— after which you helped what was left of the Rain go underground, rebuild, and then try to take him out again?”

“Assassination is such a nihilistic word.”

“Call it what it is.”

“Ah yes,” he says. “Definitely Claire. The anger in you runs so deep. Such a shame it still outpaces the insight. Let’s clarify terms: assassination is a word that can only be used if people know the target is dead. The Rain destroys their target, assumes that target’s position, gives orders in that target’s name. The perfection of subversion from within. Turning paranoia in upon itself, no? Fear of coups and assassinations drove leaders into seclusion. The Rain capitalize upon that. No one sees the Throne anymore. No one even knows his location.”

“I do,” she says.

“Do the Rain?”

“I don’t know.”

“So you’ve chosen to fight them.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”