Patrick Lee: Deep Sky

The plane. En route to Rum Lake. Waking up aboard it— that was when the Tap memory had begun. The whole day after that had been fake.

“Later on you’d reach the blast door,” Garner said, “and this time you’d know the combo. You’d never know how you knew it—you’d remember Stage One like it was some strange vision you’d had—but under the circumstances you’d certainly try punching those numbers in.”

“And end up meeting Dyer,” Travis said.

Garner nodded. “In all likelihood learning what he knew, given that you served the same interests. And when you came back out of the Tap memory, they could interrogate you for that knowledge. You’d be less conditioned to protect it than I am. Far less, I’m afraid.”

“Jesus, did I give it up? Did I tell them I’m the one who goes through the Breach?”

“You did, but they thought it was sarcasm.” Garner frowned. “An hour from now they’ll figure out that it wasn’t. I’m sorry, but there’s almost no chance of your protecting that secret against someone as skilled as Porter.”

Garner sounded defeated. It was impossible to blame him. For a long moment Travis felt the same.

Then he thought of something he’d seen earlier, while wandering the plane in the transparency suit.

A second later he thought of something else he’d seen, and managed a smile.

Holt and his people couldn’t possibly know he’d gotten such a detailed look at the aircraft. They wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that, in the Tap memory they dumped him into, he would end up boarding the plane and scoping it out nose to tail. That lack of imagination on their part had been a mistake. A big one, potentially.

He flexed his wrists against the zip tie that bound them behind him, and put his knuckles to the plasterboard an inch away.

Then he shoved. Hard. Once, twice, three times. He heard the board flex and protest, and on the fourth push its gypsum core cracked softly in a fist-sized hole, the paper surface tearing with it.

“What are you doing?” Garner said.

“You’ll see.”

With his fingers he felt the edges of the hole, and snapped away piece after piece until he’d exposed several inches of the vertical aluminum support behind him. The one his own dolly must be secured to.

Then he contorted his wrists until he had the encircling zip tie stretched between them, and pressed it against one edge of the aluminum strut.

One crisp, machined edge.

It was as sharp as a blade.

He began sliding the zip tie up and down against it.

Garner finally understood, but still didn’t look hopeful.

“That won’t free your shoulders or your ankles,” he said.

“No,” Travis said. Then he nodded to the nearby desk. The one so close beside him he hadn’t noticed it in his first glimpse of this room. “But I’ll be able to reach the top right drawer there, and get ahold of the nail clippers inside.”

Garner’s eyes registered deepest confusion for three seconds. Then he smiled too.

“You found what Allen Raines had in his red locker,” he said.

“Found it and used it,” Travis said. “Tell me about the weapons cache in the hall. Will your palm print work on the scanners?”

“It will. But an alarm goes off as soon as you open a case. They’ll be on us before we can get anything loaded.”

Travis laughed softly. “I wouldn’t worry about that.”

Holt was in the conference room, reading the interrogation notes again, when he felt the heat on the side of his face. For three or four seconds he ignored it, assuming the plane’s climate control system had begun venting warm air from the ceiling ducts.

Then it felt more than warm.

He turned in the direction it was coming from—the back wall—and his legs involuntarily kicked and shoved him away from the table.

Above the counter where the Breach entities were lined up, the plastic facing of the wall had begun to warp and melt in one area—a big half-circle blooming from the counter’s back edge.

Centered right beneath the melting place were three entities, all the same type. Holt had read the paper slip that detailed their function, but couldn’t remember it now. The objects were roughly cigar sized and made of something that looked like polished blue stone.

They’d been blue earlier, anyway.

Right now they were closer to pure white, incandescing like lightbulb filaments.

At that moment a line of flame erupted where the melting plastic had begun to pool atop the counter, the material breaking down into constituent oils. A tenth of a second later the entire melt zone was engulfed and sending noxious black smoke toward the ceiling.

Holt shoved himself up from the chair, turned, and began screaming at the others in the seating area ahead. He’d just gotten out the word fire when an alarm began shrieking, seeming to come from everywhere. He reached the doorway and saw the others already moving, running for the fire extinguishers positioned along the outer walls. The extinguishers’ mounts were strobing bright red—it was impossible to miss them.

Holt stepped aside as the first of the men sprinted past him into the room. One by one they went in, dodging around the chairs and one another, and blasting carbon dioxide at the flames. With their bodies in the way, Holt could no longer see the fire, but the men’s audible responses told him they were having trouble with it. They kept triggering the extinguishers, the sound not quite drowning out their curses and shouts.

Porter arrived at the rear of the pack, carrying two extinguishers. He shoved one into Holt’s hands and then ducked in past him. Holt followed. As he did, he heard another alarm begin blaring somewhere. Back toward the tail, maybe. God knew what it was; flames and smoke aboard an aircraft probably set off all kinds of emergency indicators.

He shouldered past the edge of the crowd and at last saw why the fire was proving difficult. The carbon dioxide was all but evaporating in the envelope of blazing air around the three entities. How hot were the damned things?

Even as he wondered, he saw one of them flicker. Then the other two. Within the following seconds all three began to dim visibly. The white-hot color was fading before his eyes.

Then the throat of the man next to him exploded out from under his head.

A gunshot.

From behind.

Holt spun—saw some of the others turning too, even as a storm of gunfire kicked up—and for maybe a quarter of a second he discerned the figures standing in the doorway. Garner. The other man. Both women. All leveling and firing Benellis from the aft arms locker.

Holt saw Garner’s weapon swing toward him. Saw its barrel aim straight into his viewpoint from ten feet away.

Holt shut his eyes.

It was over by the time Travis’s shotgun ran dry. He saw the last body drop, and as planned, the other three spun and trained their weapons on the seating area—reloading as they did—on the chance that some straggler might yet be coming in.

At the same time Travis lunged forward into the conference room. He dropped his own gun, grabbed one of the fallen extinguishers and began spraying down the remaining flames. The blue flares were already cool enough that they no longer got in the way.

Within a moment there was no fire at all. Just pooled bubbling plastic and a foot of gray vapor swirling under the ceiling. Travis gave the wall another long blast for good measure, then turned, ducked out of the room, and took his first breath since going in. As he emerged he heard a man shouting from somewhere forward of the bulk seating. Footsteps thudded on stairs, and then one of the flight crew came sprinting back.