David Williams - The Machinery of Light

“Huh,” she says.

She’s looking down five more meters of corridor, at an even larger set of blast-doors. The bodyguards push her toward them, stop. As soon as the outer doors behind them close, the soldiers go to town, stripping Haskell down to her skin. Their eyes go wide as they see how that skin’s been marred—covered with half-healed scars of endless intricacy.

“Who did this?” asks one of them.

“That’d be me,” she says.

Back when she was trying to map out the vectors of Autumn Rain’s zone attacks. Now she’s got it all figured out. Though maybe it’s too late anyway. The soldiers get busy lacing her with IVs, transferring her to another gurney and rigging her in yet another suit of specialized armor. They position the suit so that now she’s upright.

“Thanks,” she says.

The inner doors slide open.

Congreve’s dropping away. The engines of the shuttle continue to throttle up. The Operative shakes his head.

“You’re InfoCom agents,” he says.

“Imagine that,” says Riley.

“Reporting directly to Montrose?”

Maschler laughs. “And all the time the man thought we were slumming it.”

“Because you do it so well,” says the Operative.

“Easy now,” says Riley. “It’s all just business, right?”

“Going to tell me where we’re going?” asks the Operative.

“L2.”

The Operative furrows his brow. “SpaceCom territory.”

“Sure,” says Riley.

“And if I try anything?”

“Try anything you like,” says Maschler. He smiles—arches one of those bushy eyebrows. “If this ship deviates in its course, it gets taken out.”

“Thought you might say that.”

“So you may as well make yourself comfortable,” says Riley.

The Operative’s got a little too much on his mind for that. He knows that Montrose is moving him as far away from the action as possible. L2’s the last place he wants to be right now. That is, other than in a ship that might blow to hell at any moment …

“Relax,” says Maschler. “If she were gonna do you, she would have just done it back at Congreve.”

“Besides,” says Riley, “you’re too important.”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“You’ve got a new mission.”

“Which is?”

They don’t take their eyes off him, but both men are laughing in a way that makes it clear they’re both sharing the same joke. And now the Operative gets it too.

The American command center is a series of rooms that open into one another. Screens line the walls. Equipment’s everywhere. Haskell’s guards wheel her forward, maneuvering her down narrow aisles lined with consoles and seated technicians. No one pays her any attention. Apparently they’ve got other things on their mind. The atmosphere’s thick with tension. Haskell’s feeling the same way herself. She’s wheeled up a ramp and onto a raised area that presides over the lower levels beneath. More bodyguards eye her. Stephanie Montrose turns from a conversation she’s having with a member of her staff and regards Haskell with cold curiosity.

“So this is the famous Manilishi,” she says.

“And this is the woman who stole the presidency.”

“This isn’t about who’s president,” snaps Montrose. “It’s about our country.”

“What’s left of it.”

“Exactly. We’re losing this war.”

“And you’re the one who had to go and start it.”

You want me to bag Szilard,” says the Operative.

“Think of it as your greatest hit,” says Riley.

Lunar horizon’s dropping away from the window. The Operative exhales slowly, getting ready to move fast if he has to.

“So what happened to the real guys?” The asks.

“The real who?”

“The real Riley. The real Maschler.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t play stupid with—”

“Relax,” says Riley. “They never knew what hit ’em.”

Maschler scoffs. “And why are you asking such silly questions?”

“Was that you back at the Elevator, or was that them?”

“Us. They’d already been taken care of.”

“You were riding shotgun on me that whole time.”

“We were watching you strut your stuff,” says Maschler.

“Did all the work for us and then some,” adds Riley.

“Fuck,” says the Operative.

“It’s all good,” says Maschler. “We hung around the Moon and did some odd jobs these last few days.”

“Prepping the ground for the chief whore?”

“Ain’t no need to get snippy,” says Riley.

“We just haul the mail,” says Maschler.

“Then you’d better start looking at the big picture. The East is coming to bash your skulls out.”

“We’ve got the high ground, Carson. Those barbarians are about to get blasted back down the well.”

“They’ve won unless you can switch the Manilishi on.”

“Well, see, that’s all on the boss. She’ll find a way.”

“You really think so?”

“She’s a clever one,” says Maschler.

“Not so clever playing with the Lizard.”

“She had to do the dance,” says Riley.

“She’d better know when the music stops,” says the Operative.

“That’d be when you reach L2,” says Maschler.

Montrose gestures at one of the screens behind her. The screen splits in two. Each half shows one of the massive Eurasian ships.

“Take a look at those things,” she says.

Haskell’s looking. “How big are they?” she asks.

“Two klicks long. Tungsten armor. As well as—”

“Pulse-detonation engines,” says Haskell. “Nuclear warheads as fuel.”

Montrose nods. “You see what we’re up against.” She gestures at one of her staff, and the view on the screen expands to take in the larger perspective—a vast armada, rising out of the gravity well. Set against the shadow of the Earth, the ships of the East look almost like phosphorescence glimmering beneath the sea. And it’s almost like Montrose’s voice is a wave rolling in from those depths …

“Our lower orbit position is a total shambles,” she says hollowly. “North America is shattered.”

“And our defenses up in the geo?”

“Won’t last long.”

“So you’ve lost the planet.”

“It’s only a matter of time.”

“I’m not sure I can help,” says Haskell slowly.

Montrose gazes at her evenly. “I’ve already had the Praetorians purged. All the president’s men and then some. More than ten thousand executed in the last two hours and you’re welcome to join them.”

“Cut the shit, Stephanie. We both know you’re not going to do that.”

A flicker of a smile. “Want to bet?”

“What’s the point? You’ve bitten off more than you can chew, and you’re not going to pass up any opportunity to get yourself off the hook. You’re dreaming if you think I’m going to cozy up to you—”

“But you could do it,” says Montrose, and buried deep in her voice Haskell can hear the faint stirrings of a plea. “Don’t deny it. You could hack them, Claire. You could save our lunar forces—”

“Maybe. If the East’s ships are even hackable. Have you been trying?”

“There’s so much interference we can’t get through.”

“And you think I can?”

“I don’t know what you can do, Claire. And I don’t think you do either. But we can plug you into the systems and see.”