The Machinery of Light

You really want to know that price,” says Sinclair.

“I think I already do,” says the Operative.

“Then how about spelling it out?” says Lynx.

“We climb aboard and ride it,” says Sarmax.

“More like get plugged in,” says the Operative.

She straining at the tethers, but the Room’s not coming with her. It’s still attached with part of herself— Sinclair’s still got her in lockdown. She increases her energy, grinds against the shoals of limitless ocean, but all she’s doing is expanding her purview and not her power—

“Too bad,” says Sinclair. “You’ve got the world’s best view, but you just can’t seem to get to grips with it.” He gestures at the three pods on the tripod that sprouts off around her, looks at everyone else. “Sentimentality’s a bitch: I’d like it to be the original triad, but—”

“And why the fuck would we be stupid enough to climb inside?” says Carson. “We’d be your playthings—your pets—”

“Earth to Carson,” says Sarmax. “We’ve been that all along.”

Everyone looks at him. He can feel energy pulsating through the Room—practically radiating from the screens. He can only assume they feel it too. He struggles to keep his mind off Indigo, struggles to stay focused.

“Matthew intends to absorb Haskell the same way he absorbed Control,” he says.

“But he still needs us why?” asks Lynx.

“Buffers,” says Carson.

“Let’s not get carried away,” says Sinclair.

He doesn’t need any of you,” says Haskell. “Not anymore.”

“It just makes it easier,” says Sinclair. “Think of it as outriggers on a canoe. Helps keep the balance. I’ve prepped your minds since inception to be the amplifiers in the grid I’ve formed around Claire. Even one of you would be useful, but all three would be just peachy—as specialized a set of neurotransmitters as I could orchestrate, and Linehan’s chowed down enough psychedelics to qualify as a spare tire. In return, you’ll get —”

“Consumed,” says the Operative.

“Transformed,” says Sinclair. “Into godlings.”

“Under your direction,” says Lynx.

“The alternative being I butcher you all right now.”

“Butcher?” says Haskell. She’s making one last effort now. She can feel something start to give way. “Butcher? If you absorb me—the amount of energy—the psychic backwash when the Room breaks free of its last moorings will kill every living thing back within the Earth- Moon system—probably wipe the slate clean out beyond the radius of Mars—”

“And it’s all just fuel for the engines,” says Sinclair. “Necessary to attain our Archimedes point on all else. You came through a labyrinth to get in here, but the real labyrinth is everything that’s beyond: all of it just interlocking computations. And your last-ditch efforts are merely strengthening my hand. So you better take a good look, Claire, because it’s the last you’re going to get with eyes that aren’t fucking mine—”

“I don’t think so,” says Haskell—she reaches out—

“I do,” says Sinclair—flicks his wrist. A dart whips toward the Operative’s head—

—who ducks out of the way. Shakes his head.

“Now why did you have to do a thing like that?” he asks.

“Take him,” says Sinclair.

Lynx and Sarmax move toward the Operative. But Linehan heads in the other direction, dropping down to where Haskell is. Sinclair whirls, hurls another dart after him, but just misses as Linehan ducks behind the pod that contains Haskell.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Sinclair asks.

“Fucking your whole day up,” says Linehan—

—by doing what Haskell’s telling him to. She’s managed to shield his mind with hers, managed to convince Sinclair that he’ll do whatever he asks. But the cat’s out of the bag now. And Sinclair’s coming right after him—will be on him in seconds. He starts grabbing at the piping around Haskell’s pod, ripping it straight out of the paneling—

The Operative’s scrambling up the side of the inner Room, Sarmax and Lynx in hot pursuit. A knife thrown by Sarmax just misses his head. A dart flung by Lynx whips past his leg, skitters past him. He snatches it from the floor as he clambers up. They’re down to basics now. Behind him he can hear Linehan going to town on Haskell’s equipment—can hear the belching of pneumatic pipes torn asunder while something presses in upon his mind—

“You can’t escape us,” says Lynx.

He might just have a point. Sarmax alone would still be more than a match for him. And with Lynx in the equation, it’s even more of a long shot. Especially when there’s no zone left for him to access, his mind pressed back into his skull by the vortex the Room’s becoming, his brain once more having purview over nothing save his body. The Operative depresses a trigger in his mouth, feels a needle slide into his cheek, one last shot of grade-A combat drugs surging through him, a rush that’s intensified by the certain knowledge that Sarmax and Lynx are riding the same wave, too, building still further as he thinks of Claire at the center of it all … remembering her on the edge of seventeen, a mind like nothing he’d ever seen, a single endless summer …

Hide-and-seek: Linehan’s on one side of the pod, Sinclair’s on the other. Linehan’s doing his best to keep it that way, moving back and forth to prevent Sinclair from coming to grips with him. He knows the only reason he’s still sane is because Haskell’s offering some protection. But this is a game that can have only one ending. So he’s smashing against the equipment with his bare fists, rending metal as Sinclair starts bellowing like a wounded animal and Haskell’s mind starts convulsing—

The Operative feels it too: a mind in meltdown, flailing against him as Lynx and Sarmax close in from both directions. It’s like all surfaces are twisting around him now—mentally and physically—more darts flung by Lynx and Sarmax slicing past him as he struggles to breathe and the walls along which he’s climbing seem to be somehow bending—

“What the fuck is going on?” yells Lynx.

“The no-room’s crashing,” mutters Sarmax.

The Operative shoves off one of the screens, straight back toward his pursuers—Lynx draws a knife, slices it in toward him—

—just as Linehan doubles back again—wrong way this time. Sinclair’s right there, scuttling in toward him like some kind of demented crab, hands looking more like claws—and Linehan does the only thing he can do: leaps at him, burying his teeth in Sinclair’s neck—

—as the Operative ducks in under Lynx’s killing blow, smashing his fist into Lynx’s face, puncturing the skin with a fingernail that hides a needle that extrudes—

“Fuck,” yells Lynx—the last coherent thing he says as the poison enters his brain and he starts frothing at the mouth—

“Good riddance,” says Sarmax.

“Just us now,” says the Operative.

“Like it should be.”