• • •
Hatchet man with too much downtime. Man of action who’s unaccustomed to the undertow of his own mind: it’s hauling against him in ayahuasca rhythms as he watches the Moon dwindle and stares at the lights flickering off Lynx’s spaced-out face. Linehan knows he was never supposed to get this far. He should have been nailed once he’d helped bring down the Elevator. He was a loose end that should have been snipped. In a way he was. It’s almost like everything that’s happened since has been part of some fucked-up afterlife. As though the tunnel beneath the Atlantic was really the journey to the underworld.
And back. Because four days ago he made it through the temple of the Jaguars and out into a whole new world. And yet it’s ended up being a lot like the life from which he’d been spat. New bosses, old bosses— makes no difference in the end. The higher you get, the more dangerous you are to those you serve and the more lethal your missions become. Living on the edge—and Linehan has been there so long he wonders if he was ever anywhere else. It’s all he has, this crazy game where the rules change as fast as you can make them up. He’s had his mind blown these last few days. He never knew how good he was until he went rogue from SpaceCom—never dreamed he’d be capable of pulling it off with no cards to show and even fewer to play.
And now he has to go and do it one more time. He remembers the Throne’s briefing. The president said the Rain were gone, but that they’d so shaken up the world it was about to go over the cliff anyway. He looked at Linehan and said
Which is when the Throne told him he’d be working with Lynx this time, that Spencer’s one hell of a razor, but that Lynx is even better. Linehan just shrugged. He liked Spencer. Loved him, even—loved to hate him, really—and he worries that with the guy gone maybe his luck’s run out at last.
Which would be a shame. Because coming back to L2 is coming back to where it all began. He trained there, came up through the ranks there. And it was the machinations of L2 that left him on Earth running for his life. Now he’s back to take the life of the man who once controlled his. The Throne said he can retire once that’s happened. Linehan has some vague notion of what such a life would be like: a life without someone to pursue, a life without someone to run from. He has some idea of just heading out to Mars—just rigging a hab halfway up some mountain and spending his days watching red sprawl below and universe cruise by overhead. He knows that’ll never happen. He knows what happens to those who live by the sword. He wants it no other way.
No way out: she’s running through the burning streets of Belem-Macapa and the burning Elevator’s plunging from the sky toward her. She can’t remember how she got here. She can’t remember what happens next. She thought it involved Jason. But Jason’s dead. And she’s about to join him. Because there’s no way out of this. The mob’s in full cry after her, screaming for her blood, screaming that they’ve found themselves a Yankee razor. It’s true. She’s American. She can’t help that. She can’t help what her people have done. She can’t give these people what they never had. She’s got only one thing left to give. She turns a corner.
And finds she’s reached the river. The Amazon stretches away on both sides, winding through the city. There’s so much smoke now that she can barely see the pier that stretches out into the midst of the river. She runs along the pier, reaches its end.
A boat’s sitting there. It’s small—pretty much a gondola. Carson stands in its rear. He’s leaning on an oar, gazing up at her.
“Which way?” he asks.
She leaps in, tells him any way will do. But he tells her she has to choose. Between upriver and downriver. Between jungle and sea. She stares at him. She can’t speak. The mob’s storming onto the pier behind her. Carson glances at them, smiles. Looks back at her.
“Choose quickly,” he says.
But she can’t. She can’t choose at all. Even as the mob closes upon her. Even as she realizes her mind’s not her own. It’s as though someone’s pulling her strings. As though someone’s about to cut her loose.
“Take her apart,” says Carson.
Men wielding machetes leap into the boat.
Sarmax is off in his own little world. That suits Spencer fine. He’s not interested in dealing with that guy’s issues. All he’s interested in is what’s in his own mind.
Which is intricate beyond belief. Now that they’ve crossed the coast of Vietnam, more of the Eastern zone’s becoming visible. He’s got access to a lot more data than he had previously. Things that were blurry are becoming clear. Things that weren’t even visible are coming into sight. Most of those things have locks. But that doesn’t matter, because he’s starting to make inroads anyway. The files of Alek Jarvin float before him: onetime handler of CICom and fugitive for the last few days of his life. Spencer still hasn’t cracked them.
And he’s growing increasingly sure they contain something he needs. Something he’d better figure out quickly. His mind’s operating on multiple levels now. His thoughts are accelerating. He’s starting to feel like he’s tripping again. Faces dance on the edge of his zone-vision, but every time he looks, they’re gone. He feels like he’s become a ghost, like he’s been summoned from some world beyond to haunt this one for all its sins. His view into the cities of the East keeps on growing. He’s finally got the access he’s always wanted—he looks in upon those lives and streets and cities and knows himself for the voyeur he always was. He gets it now—sees that those lives were always more interesting than his own. That what’s inside a screen was always more compelling than whatever might appear within a window. By far. He’s come so far too—doesn’t want to stop now as his mind races toward the mountains, drops through shafts, darts in toward all the secret chambers that lie beneath.
Now she’s in a room without windows. Or doors. She’s sitting at a table. The U.S. president sits at the table’s other side. They look at each other. “Are you really Harrison?” she asks. “Does it matter?”
“I think it does.”
“Indeed,” he says. “Have you been granted an audience under the deepest of truth-serums or is this just Carson rummaging through your subconscious, using this face as a filter? I’m afraid I’m not in a position to give you absolute proof either way.”
“But we can talk anyway,” she says.
“I suppose we can.”
“Why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Betray me.”
“I can’t betray anyone, Claire. By definition.”
“You really think it all revolves around you.”
“I’d be a fool to believe otherwise.”
“I don’t understand,” she says.
“I’m responsible for our nation’s future.”
“You think I stand in the way of that?”
“I think our partnership was unnatural, Claire.”
“Temporary, then.”
“Ah.”
