The Machinery of Light

“You’ve been talking with Maschler and Riley?” Carson asks.

“Sure,” says Linehan.

“What’d they say?”

“You don’t know?”

“Pretend I don’t.”

“Just low-grade bitching, boss.”

“Define ‘low-grade.’”

“The kind that’s only a problem when it stops.”

“Has Lynx talked to you?”

Linehan says nothing.

“Well?” demands Carson.

“No.”

“Why do I not quite believe that?”

“What do you want me to do if he does?”

“Hear him out. Laugh at his retarded jokes.”

“That might be tough.”

“What’ll be tough is if you cross me.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Other than the fact that otherwise you’re dead?”

“I understand sticks just fine,” says Linehan. “But I like carrot too. What are you and Lynx looking for anyway?”

“Who says we’re looking for something?”

“I’m not stupid, Carson.”

“Then you’ll appreciate the importance of finding a way off this goddamn fleet.”

“Sure, but you guys are running some other agenda. All this beetling back and forth to different parts of the fleet—you’re searching for something.”

“An interesting theory. What do you think we’re after?”

“Beats me.”

“Good,” says Carson. “Look, being kept in the dark is frustrating. But trust me, you don’t want to know the big picture.”

“How about letting me be the judge of that?”

“How about letting me worry about the shit that’s above your pay grade? Point is that when the moment comes, you’re going to have to make a choice.”

“Between you and Lynx.”

“Maschler and Riley are only along for the ride because we’re going to need all the muscle we can get for the stunts we’re about to pull. I know you won’t give anything they say a second thought. But Lynx is nothing if not persuasive. He’s got a way of getting inside one’s head with his twists of what he’ll try to convince you passes for logic. But he won’t forget the fact that you already fucked him over.”

“Szilard fucked him over. Using me.”

“You think that matters to him?”

“Probably not.”

“What matters is that you never crossed me. And you saved us all at the Europa Platform. Stay on my side, and you’ll have anything you want, Linehan. Anything. Freedom from all this bullshit, no bosses, dominion over whatever—doesn’t matter. Fuck, you can have Mars if you want it.”

“That’s what Harrison offered me. A place up there—”

“I’m offering you the whole planet.”

Pause. “You’re not serious.”

“Why not?” says the Operative. “Not like I want the dump. Look man, the one thing I’m loyal to is loyalty. And I’m going to need it when the shit hits the mother of all fans.”

“And that’d be when?”

“Hate to say it, but probably before we’re ready.”

“You’re running behind schedule?”

“Now we’ll see if you can keep a secret.”

The shuttle initiates docking sequence.

They head from the maintenance shafts to auxiliary shafts to elevator shafts. They reach the spine of the ship in short order and start making haste along it. There’s a clanking noise below them. Cable starts to reel past them.

“Grab it,” says Sarmax.

They do—it starts to haul them out of the forward levels of the ship. The elevator car whips past them, heading in the direction they’ve come from as they drop into the middle layers.

“Let’s change it up,” says Spencer.

“Agreed,” says Jarvin.

Spencer finds that annoying. It doesn’t matter what Jarvin thinks or says, now that Spencer has the data in his head—the vantage point on Eastern zone he’s been seeking, which in turn provides perspective on so much else. He steps from the cable onto the wall of the shaft, his magnetic grips clinging while his camo cranks away. The others follow him through a crawlspace that leads into one of the parallel shafts. This one’s much narrower. The elevators that run through it are intended purely for personnel. They grab another cable, alight on an elevator car that’s moving fast toward the rear of the ship—they enter via the ceiling into the empty car.

“Let’s hope your confidence is justified,” says Jarvin.

“Not my fault you couldn’t translate what you stole,” says Spencer.

“You really broke through on everything?”

“Not all of it, no.”

“But enough of it to—”

“It’s their zone tactics,” says Spencer. “Their strategy.”

“Autumn Rain’s.”

“Like nothing I’ve ever seen. Precise guidelines—a fucking manual—for how to use the legacy zones to creep up and around the current ones.”

“Like they did in South America.”

“And at the Europa Platform. And everywhere else. And how to remain undetected while they were doing it. I took a tour through yesterday’s Russia, climbed out into today’s Moscow, and got in behind the Praesidium’s firewall.”

“Penetrated it altogether?” Jarvin sounds skeptical.

“The next best thing. Managed to move a few files outside of it. Got the blueprints for what we’re heading toward—not to mention the real lowdown on the fleet logistics.”

“Which are?”

“They’re about to green-light the final assault,” says Spencer. He works a sequence on the zone; the elevator slows, slides to a halt.

“What the hell’s going on?” says Sarmax.

“We’re between floors,” says Jarvin.

The doors are opening anyway—

Haskell walks up to the president. He looks down at her, floodlights reflected in his visor. The blighted garden stretches all around them. Szilard’s bodyguards stand close at hand.

“Quite a place,” she says.

“It used to look a little more impressive.”

“I’ll bet.”

“What happened here?” he asks.