“Five more minutes,” says Spencer.
“Try one.”
“I need more than that to make sure there’s nothing else in Jarvin’s files.”
“Bring ’em with us.”
• • •
She’s waking up again.
Or at least, she thinks she is. She thought she was awake awhile back too. But then fire flared against her. Lava fell across her. She was dreaming. She was glad of it.
But now she’s in a metal-walled room. Strapped into a chair, in what feels like zero-G. She’s wearing civilian clothing. She tries to move—and can’t. She tries to access the zone, only to find that she’s cut off. The room’s clearly been sealed to wireless access. She’s not going anywhere. Nor can she remember how she got here in the first place.
All she knows is that something’s very wrong. She tries to think back to something … anything … grasping to remember something that feels
Except for the Rain.
She remembers now. After she and the Throne and his operatives reached Earth, she restarted the zone, and the Eurasian zone restarted with it.
That made him angry. She remembers the expression on his face as he lay there with his doctors attending to him. She told him it wasn’t her fault the two zones rebooted at the same time. It was just the way the Rain configured the whole thing, though she didn’t like the expression on the president’s face. It was one of missed opportunity. It was a question in her mind: who knows what he would have done had he been confronted with the temptation of an undefended East? She hates to even ask the question. But Harrison had to be content with settling with the Rain—and even before he could walk again, she was merging her mind with his once more in that strange congress, using the amplified executive node to finish the job they’d started together back at the Europa Platform.
Only this time the Rain had no counterplans ready. They were caught. They knew it. And there were so few of them left. A triad in Zurich, a triad in London, another in HK … she helped the Praetorians wipe them out. She wept while she was doing it. She knew all their names, remembered them all too well. But she didn’t trust her memories of them. And she’d already chosen sides.
Or so she thought. Now she’s a lot less certain. She stares at the room around her, tries to remember what she’s missing.
So what’s the story?” asks Linehan.
“The story is you get to stop watching the vid.”
“I mean what’s up with your hack?”
“I know what you meant. Now get in here.”
Linehan doesn’t move; he keeps on gazing at the city in the window while the ayahuasca keeps on crackling in his mind. It seems to have intensified now that he’s on the Moon. He feels so gone it’s almost as if the city’s gazing in at him: the heart of lunar farside, the translucent dome of downtown Congreve shimmering in the distance. The L2 fleet’s a blaze of lights in the sky beyond. The city beneath it has managed to slip through the events of the last several days. It’s been left unscathed.
So far.
“How are we getting in?”
“I’ll tell you as we go,” says Lynx. “Help me out with this.”
“With what?”
“In here, you moron!”
In the other room, Lynx is pulling material out of a rather large plastic container. Material that looks like—
“Those are suits,” says Linehan.
“No shit.”
“Just making sure we’re on the same page.”
“You’re really getting on my nerves,” says Lynx. He pulls the suit out farther, his new bionic hand hissing softly as he does so. He hands the edges to Linehan, starts pulling at the second suit.
“So where did you get these?” asks Linehan.
“Special delivery. They showed up while you were watching the vid.”
“I would have thought I’d have heard the door.”
“There was no knock.”
“I still would have noticed,” says Linehan.
“Alright, asshole, you win. They were here all along.”
“Where?”
“Behind that panel.” Lynx gestures at a panel in the wall. One that’s ever so slightly askew.
“How’d they get there?” asks Linehan.
“You ask way too many questions.”
“It’s how I stay alive.”
“But somehow you keep ending up on suicide missions.”
“That what this is?”
“Take a good look at those suits, Linehan.”
Linehan does. And then takes an even closer look.
“Wait a sec,” he says, “it’s not even—”
“But you’re wearing it all the same,” says Lynx.
The streets are a total mess. Everyone went to work this morning thinking it was just a normal day, only to realize it was anything but. Now they’re all trying to get home, or just trying to find a place to hide. Vehicles are jammed everywhere. Everyone’s honking. Everyone’s yelling.
“What do you think?” says Spencer on the one-on-one. “I think we need to get a little lower,” says Sarmax. They’re on a two-seater motorbike. They’re wearing civilian clothing. Sarmax is driving. Spencer’s just looking—at the data in his mind, at the chaos on the streets. Sarmax takes the bike up along the sidewalk, weaving through the crowd. People leap out of the way—he steers past them, and down a covered alley. The vaults of the city overhead vanish. They roar through the enclosure and out into more traffic. The city-center ziggurats glimmer in the distance. Eurasian flags fly atop some of them. American flags have been raised on others.
“Divide and conquer,” says Spencer on the one-on-one.
Sarmax says nothing. He’s lost in thought. Or maybe he’s just trying to avoid thinking. He’s been acting strange this whole time. When Spencer realized he was being paired with Sarmax he was grateful to be getting away from Linehan. But a day and a half with the new guy, and he’s feeling a little nostalgia for the old. Linehan may have been nuts, but at least he was hell-bent on avoiding hell. Whereas Sarmax has been running this mission like a man who’s tired of life, as though the one thing that mattered to him in that life is gone. Spencer doesn’t know what’s up with that. He’s pretty sure he doesn’t want to. He’s got enough on his hands dealing with what’s in his head anyway. And now a wireless signal reaches his brain.
“Ignition,” he says.
“Good,” replies Sarmax.
The only thing that gets Sarmax to talk is something that involves the mission. In this case the news that the thermite they rigged at the handler’s safe house has just ignited and is probably busy spreading to adjacent buildings. Nothing back at Jarvin’s place is going to be found intact. The only evidence of the mission that’s left is on this motorbike.
Which Sarmax is now sending down another alley. It slants downward, turns into a tunnel too
