The Burning Skies

narrow for larger vehicles. People jump out of the way as the motorbike roars past them, and then the bike pulls out into a larger concourse-cavern where buildings reach from floor to ceiling. The road here is much wider. Only it’s got even more traffic on it. The wrong type of traffic too …

“Shit,” says Spencer.

“Relax,” replies Sarmax.

And stops the bike. To do anything else would attract attention from the Eurasian convoy now steamrollering its way down the center of the road. The two men wait by the sidewalk with the other bikes and mopeds while the drivers of the vehicles trapped in the path of the juggernatus flee past them. The heavy Eurasian crawlers crunch the civilian traffic into so much wreckage. Spencer stares at the power-suited soldiers sitting atop those crawlers.

“The fucking East,” he says.

“Better stop thinking that way,” says Sarmax.

“Why’s that?”

“Because we’re here to look the part.”

Spencer’s been doing his best to make sure that’s the case—to make them into Russians who are part of this city’s vibrant emigre community—and who fortunately never did anything to get onto the list that the new bosses of this half of HK compiled in advance of their arrival. These two particular Russians have been living here for more than a decade.

Even though they arrived only yesterday. About five hours before Russian and Chinese soldiers showed up, in fact. Infiltration’s a lot easier if you arrive before a perimeter gets established. So now Sarmax fires up the motorbike again, takes the vehicle out of the cavern and through a long series of service tunnels. At one point they bump down stairs. Sarmax stops the motorbike just past the stairs and leaps off the back. Starts rigging things onto the wall.

“What’s that?” asks Spencer.

“Hi-ex.”

“To use on who?”

“Nobody.”

“What’s up with that?”

“Shut the fuck up.”

Spencer obliges. Sarmax finishes what he’s doing and gets back on the bike. They keep going, wind along the passage, onto still wider streets, with buildings crowding up the walls along both sides. Cyrillic logos are everywhere. This is an area that’s nowhere near as crowded as some of the ones upstairs.

“I’m surprised it’s not bedlam,” says Spencer.

“It was,” says Sarmax, “when it got cleaned out.”

“Which was when?”

“This morning. This was one of the first places the ‘liberators’ hit. I’d estimate half the population got rounded up. Everyone who’s left is keeping a low profile.”

“Like us.”

“Just act natural,” says Sarmax. He turns the bike down a side street, hits the brakes, and slides off. He leans the bike against a wall and turns to Spencer.

“Let’s go,” he says. “Remember, only Russian from now on. I’ll do the talking.”

Spencer’s downloaded the requisite software. But Sarmax has known the language for years. Theoretically that puts them on the same level. But in practice, the edge goes to the man who’s actually run missions against the East before. He and Spencer walk farther down the side street past several storefronts. Nearly all are boarded up. The only one that isn’t has no signs. Noise can be heard from within, along with music and singing.

“Sounds like a whorehouse,” says Spencer.

“Because it is.”

A well-appointed one too. With a madam to greet them before they get much farther. She speaks to them in Russian.

“Do I know you gentlemen?”

“I hope not,” says Sarmax.

• • •

She hopes this isn’t what it looks like. Because it looks like the Throne’s stabbed her in the back. Like he’s got her imprisoned. And it doesn’t do anything for her peace of mind that the only other explanations she can think of are even worse. Perhaps the Rain got to the Throne after all. Perhaps they were waiting for him in his bunker. Perhaps they’ll be here any minute.

But the minutes keep on ticking past, and the only door to the room she’s in remains closed. No sound emanates from beyond it. All she’s got is the vibration that’s coming through the walls, the low humming of some engine. She wonders how long it’s been—wonders how long she’s been drifting in and out of consciousness.

Wonders whether she’s even awake right now.

The thought that she’s not continues to be the most optimistic scenario she can think of. But it’s not one she takes seriously. She thinks back to the Throne talking to her in the wake of her destruction of the Rain. Telling her he wasn’t sure they were all gone.

Or was that her saying that? That they needed to execute the original strategy: needed to combine with the Eurasians to sweep the globe and achieve certainty that the Rain were finished. But then Harrison said he was no longer sure that was the right strategy. That he wasn’t even sure the Eurasian executive node had been reconstituted yet. That he needed better data on what was going on in Moscow and Beijing before he renewed his overtures to the East. That he needed her help in obtaining that data.

And she said no.

She remembers now. She said no. And when he asked her why not, his voice wasn’t in the tone of a man whose life she’d saved. It was in the tone of a man who had never been denied. Who had learned nothing, as though the hours on the Europa Platform had happened to somebody else. She’d answered him—said she couldn’t play power games. He merely blinked, asked her what she meant. She tried to tell him, but she couldn’t explain.

Or maybe she can’t remember her own explanations. Because she’s having trouble piecing together what happened after that. Something about her begging him to finish what he started. Something about taking detente to the next level. But he’d just smiled—almost sadly, it seemed to her—just smiled and said that detente was a balancing act, that he was the only one who knew how to walk that line. That he couldn’t turn back the clock. That he wouldn’t want to. That he couldn’t rely solely on the advice of a computer …

She’d stared at him. She’d said, you mean me? He shook his head. Said—

But now she hears something. On the other side of the door. It’s unmistakable. It’s electronic locks sliding away.

“Who’s there?” she says.

There’s no reply. She hears manual dead bolts being slid from their grooves.

“Who’s fucking there?” she yells.

But there’s no reply.

The door opens—

You been here before?” asks Linehan on the one-on-one.

“What makes you say that?”

“You drive like a man who has.”

But Lynx just shrugs, keeps on maneuvering through the traffic on Congreve’s outskirts, toward the dome that’s rising in the distance. That traffic’s pretty light. It ought to be—it’s the middle of the graveyard shift. The sun is visible in the sky, but Congreve runs on Greenwich Mean Time. Totally arbitrary—but it has to run on