bound up in the very essence of your powers.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“It’s very simple,” says Control, and as he talks she can’t help but notice the amorphous light around her is fading. “Your conscious callback accounts for only the merest fraction of what we’re interested in. Your unconscious material is where the real secrets lurk.”
“You’re talking like a fucking shrink,” she says.
“As does any good interrogator.”
She tries to reply, but she’s having difficulty forming words. It’s like the fading light is taking the ground out beneath her—like the gathering dark is sapping her will to resist. She feels herself tossed through the canyons of her own mind and it’s all she can do to hang on—
“Cat got your tongue?” asks Control. “Think, Claire, what a fragile reed even the truest of recollections are. So much seen and yet so little understood. So much that goes down before we even comprehend it. What was done to you back in the vat? Do you have any idea? What happened in those first few hours?
Darkness envelops her.
They’ve been stuck in the dark for a little too long now—crawling through narrow spaces while trying to ignore the clanking and creaking all around them. Generators whining, KE racks humming: this ship’s clearly heavily involved in whatever combat’s going on outside.
“How long has it been?” asks Linehan suddenly.
“Just under an hour,” says Lynx.
“No kidding.”
“Can’t you tell time?”
“Not with any certainty.”
He’s been drugged and rebooted a few too many times for that. Now Linehan’s living in something that approximates the eternal present. Past and future seem to be collapsing in upon him. He feels like he’s been in these shafts forever. But there’s something that’s been growing on his mind—
“So where the fuck are we?”
“This is the
“That’s what covert construction will get you.”
“Sure,” says Lynx. “And now she’s giving all she’s got against the East.”
“How’s she doing?”
“Haven’t a clue. I can’t access the ship’s mainframes.”
“You’re cut off from zone?”
“The parts that count. That’s one of the reasons we’re staying mobile.”
Linehan nods. Spencer had explained it to him once: the zone’s like a series of hills. Different positions give different vantage points. Certain locations are inherent deathtraps. Others allow you to rain shit down upon your opponent. Or just act like you’re not there.
“Do they know we’re here?” asks Linehan.
“Of course they know we’re here. We fucking crash-landed into their goddamn hangar bay.”
“I meant are they on our trail?”
“Presumably.”
“You don’t know for sure?”
“Until I get the full zone picture—”
“I’ve heard this already.” Linehan opens a trapdoor; they keep on crawling.
Stabilized at last,” says Spencer.
“And it’s about time too,” says Sarmax.
It’s taken long enough. They’ve been in this elevator shaft doing nothing but hold on while the ship’s been shaking like it’s on the point of falling apart, even as it pulverizes the opposition. The American geo positions were speed bumps and nothing more. The ship’s starting to put the Earth behind it.
“Not a pretty sight,” says Spencer.
It never is when a side of planet gets hit by everything and then some. The atmosphere is still burning. The Eurasian reserves have swarmed through the lower orbits. The only resistance they’ve left is underground, and most of that can be safely bypassed. Doesn’t matter how many American forces are down there as long as their ground-to-space weapons have been eliminated.
“All that counts now is the high ground,” says Sarmax.
And that’s clearly the next stop.
“Take a look at
“Ballsy,” says Sarmax.
The rear camera feeds aboard this megaship are positioned to capture images between each of the nuclear blasts that keep on propelling the ship ever farther out into space. When those blasts are detonating, armored shutters ensure instrument integrity. And when those blasts aren’t—
“Someone’s getting danger pay,” says Spencer.
Rigid tethers lashed to the sides of both behemoths are splayed out for scores of kilometers into space. Each cable’s towing several ships, which look to be modified corvettes. They’ve obviously received more radiation- shielding than usual. Even so, it looks like they’re taking damage—
“It’s worth it,” says Sarmax.
“I’m sure,” says Spencer.
“The summit of the Earth-Moon system,” continues Sarmax, as though he’s giving a briefing. “The East has nothing up there now. They’ve been cleaned out of their lunar positions and their fortress at L4 is a smoking ruin. But the Americans have fuck-all back on Earth. And now that their geo position has been rolled up they’re reeling. They’re outnumbered. And we’re the mobile spearhead. These two dreadnaughts are getting out ahead of the main fleet so they can strike while the iron’s hot. That’s why we’re towing so many fucking ships—they want to get up there as quick as possible with as big a force as possible.”
“Probably.”
“If you’d managed to hack the Eurasian net we wouldn’t need to be guessing.”
“Easier said than done,” says Spencer.
“Apparently.”
“Look, this is a
“You sound like you’re making excuses.”
“I like to think of them as reasons.”
“And I don’t like it.”
“Tough shit, Leo. All I can hack is this ship.”
“And not even all of that.”
“Then how about you fuck off and let me get back to it.”
“And the handler’s file?”
“Has taken a backseat to cracking the ship’s cockpit.”
“Maybe it shouldn’t.”
“And you’re being
For a moment there’s silence.
