The Burning Skies

Claire Haskell sits within a container aboard some ship, and darkness sits within her. The conversation with Matthew Sinclair has left her feeling sick. She thought she would have left the wreckage of her past life behind her by now, but it’s only growing ever more insistent—Jason’s face in the throes of passion, Jason’s face as she killed him, his body contorted on the SeaMech’s floor—all of it keeps replaying in her mind, and she wishes she could undo all of it.

Her own weakness appalls her, but she can’t deny that she’d sell out the whole world just to put the clock back four days. She’d throw in her lot with the Rain just to keep Jason alive.

But now he’s dead. And she’s thankful, because it means the key to her heart’s been thrown away forever. No one can hurt her anymore. No one can second-guess her while she takes stock of the whole game— the superpowers as they shore up their defenses, the endless gates of both those zones, those endless eyes scanning endlessly for Rain.

And for her. She can’t see the Rain, though. She hasn’t seen them since their defeat four days ago —in the minutes after that defeat, she got a read on them receding into zone like a leviathan fading beneath the waves: just a quick glimpse of scales and teeth, and then it was gone. She saw enough to realize just how much of a threat they still were. It worries her that she hasn’t seen them since. It worries her even more that they might have seen her. That they might have found some way inside her, and she might not even know it. Even if she is Manilishi, that doesn’t mean she can’t lose.

So she takes what precautions she can. If the Rain retain some secret thing inside her—some secret key to her, in spite of all her precautions—they might see what’s in her brain’s software. They might see what’s in her mind.

But they won’t see what’s on her own skin—what she’s drawn upon it. Across the hours, in the oily darkness of the holds of spaceships, surrounded by the clank of machinery, she’s pricked maps upon that skin, scarred that skin, painted it all in her own blood: all her calculations, all her strategy, whole swathes of blueprint of zone upon her limbs and chest—both zones, and the neutral ones, too—endless geometries of virtual architecture, endless coordinates in no-space. Insight’s a myriad bloody slashes all across her. Knowledge is no longer fleeting now that it’s etched upon her.

She studies endless patterns, looking for what all the others may have missed. Twenty-four hours since thwarting the war, and a nagging disquiet is stealing through her. Forty-eight hours, and that disquiet has become a fear unlike any she’s ever known.

Now it’s been ninety-six hours. The conversation with Sinclair has confirmed what she’s been thinking. She’s so scared she feels like her mind’s coming apart. Worse, as long as she was slicing herself, she was forgetting Jason. But now she’s got nothing more to cut.

She’s got nothing more to learn either. She knows exactly where she needs to be: right where she is now. Crosshairs slide together in her mind. She feels herself start gliding forward.

The chamber in which Leo Sarmax awoke is almost identical to the one that the Operative just left. The difference is it contains only a single additional door.

And a phone.

“A what?” asks Sarmax.

“A phone,” says the Operative, gesturing at the small device that’s set into one wall. “Archaic communication device phased out by the middle of the last century.”

“Carson. I know what a fucking phone is.”

“Then why’d you ask?”

“Because that’s not a phone.”

“Yeah?”

“That looks like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s because it’s a real antique.”

“Yeah?” asks Sarmax.

“Ma Bell, baby. Twentieth century.”

“So what the fuck’s it doing here?”

“I’m guessing somebody rigged it.”

“Why?”

“Well,” says the Operative, “that’s the big question, isn’t it?”

“And you don’t remember the answer?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You don’t remember anything about why we’re here?”

“That’s a negative.”

“Those fucking bastards,” says Sarmax.

“So what’s new?” replies the Operative tonelessly.

“Would have thought you’d have been promoted above this kind of bullshit.”

“Career trajectory’s a bitch.”

“Would have thought the handlers would be showing me more gratitude for walking back in their door.”

“Gratitude’s not in their vocabulary, Leo. We need to figure this out from first principles.”

They stare at each other.

“You first,” says Sarmax.

“Okay,” says the Operative. He gestures at Sarmax’s rifle. “For a start, we’ve got some new tech.”

“Not just my rifle. My armor. Your armor.”

“Straight off the Praetorian R&D racks, I’m guessing.”

“Let’s hope so,” says Sarmax.

“And we were placed in rooms in close proximity to one another.”

“But not in the same room.”

“Presumably to allow each of us some warning time if the other got nailed. Have you tried that door out of here?”

“It’s sealed,” says Sarmax. “Could blow it open, but I’m not sure that’s a good move. Have you tried the zone of wherever the fuck we are?”

“The zone’s off-limits.”

“Meaning what?”

But the Operative’s not sure he has the answer. All he’s got is the fact that the zone-interfaces in his armor are switched off, as are those within his head. He could switch them on, but he doesn’t. Because a certain feeling’s brewing in him. He’s starting to piece together what this all must mean in aggregation.

“We’re on a stealth mission.”

“Which makes no sense,” says Sarmax.

“Doesn’t it,” says the Operative mildly.

“Obviously. How the fuck can we be stealthy if you can’t cover us in zone?”

The Operative mulls this over. He understands Sarmax’s anxiety. All the more so because he shares it. Hacking an enemy’s systems is how one stays undetected. It’s how one stays ahead of the eyes. But these last few days have witnessed the death of a lot of assumptions. And the current situation is setting in motion some nasty questions.

“The Throne’s handlers are changing up the game,” says the Operative carefully. “They’re reversing the normal procedure. They’re terrified of Rain penetration of the zone. Clearly whatever terrain we’re in