David Williams - The Burning Skies

“ I don’t anticipate you being of any use to me ever again. I just know that if I kill you—”

“— the Throne will know somebody penetrated the L5 fortress. Claire, I’m so glad it’s you. Why didn’t you join Autumn Rain?”

“ Because they would have perpetuated the problem.”

“ You need to tell me what you mean by that.”

“ They want to rule humanity.”

“ And that’s a sin?”

“ They turned Hong Kong into a charnel-house.”

“ Our world’s a charnel-house. The only question is what to do about it. They at least have a plan.”

“ The plan you gave them.”

“ The plan I bred them for. They weren’t just born to seize power. They were born to wield it.”

“ So it was to be them that ruled?”

“ You as well.”

“ But not you?”

He shrugs. “Of course I would have.”

“ For a moment there, I thought you were letting me down.”

“ They’re still children, Claire. So are you, for that matter. They’d need guidance. But I wouldn’t have stood in their way for very long.”

“ Didn’t stop them from trying to hurry up the process.”

Sinclair says nothing.

“ Because that’s what happened, right? They sent the Throne the proof of your communications with them, didn’t they? Right at the same time they were jacking my spaceplane to get at me? That’s why the Praetorians arrested you when they did.”

“ I can’t say I fault your logic.”

“ Did you order the destruction of the Elevator? Or was that them striking out on their own too?”

“ Why would I order the senseless destruction of such valuable hardware? No, that was their idea. And even if it had been mine, I would never have let it happen when you were in the middle of that inferno in South America. They clearly didn’t know you were there either.”

“ I thought Morat was reporting back to them.”

“ I’m assuming they got to Morat pretty much immediately after that.”

“ Turned him right under your nose.”

“ I made mistakes.”

“ That’s all you can say?”

“ What else would you have from me?”

“ How about how the fuck did you let it happen? It really came as a surprise to you that a group that had already turned the tables on their executioners would betray their would-be grey eminence?”

“ Who said it came as a surprise? Deal with something like the Rain and you never know quite where you stand.”

“ That’s for sure.”

“ I admit it—I thought I could control them. I thought they saw me as a father figure. I didn’t realize that there was only one thing I had that they wanted.”

“ Me.”

“ The Manilishi herself.” He pauses. “How’s that working for you these days?”

“ I’m still trying to figure out just what the fuck I am.”

“ The culmination of the Autumn Rain experiment.”

“ I know that. But what does that—”

“ Mean?” He waves a hand languidly. “Autumn Rain was to be backed on its combat runs by a unique type of razor capable of running zone in a whole new way.”

“ I’ll say.”

“ Intuition lets you fly, child.”

“ But how the hell did you engineer—”

“ A great question.”

“ You don’t know?”

“ We designed something in which every cell computes—molecular computing taken to a new level. We foresaw there’d be synergies we didn’t plan for. We eventually realized we were dealing with a violation of locality that allows the subject—”

“ Don’t subject me. I broke beyond those labels.”

“— to evade the penalties that a razor pays when hacking a remote target. You don’t have the split-second disadvantage that any normal razor has during off-planet hacking. Your reaction times outpace the stimuli your brain receives and nobody knows why. No wonder you’re running rings around L5’s razors.”

“ I’ll do the same to the Rain.”

“ Claire, you’re not invincible.”

“ Without me, neither are the Rain.”

“ They’ll have the advantage.”

“ Once it became clear they’d had turned against you, why did you send me to the Moon?”

“ I wanted to get you someplace safe.”

“ Safe?”

“ Relatively speaking.”

“ The Moon wasn’t even vaguely safe. The Rain were up there. To say nothing of the SpaceCom cabal that the Rain was using to try to ignite war.”

“ Once you were on the scene and activated as Manilishi, none of that would have meant much. The Rain’s primary force was on Earth, preparing to hit the superpowers’ leadership. They had one team on the Moon beneath Nansen Station pulling the strings of the SpaceCom conspiracy, and another preparing to hit Szilard on L2. You would have cleaned up the Moon pretty quick.”

“ Maybe.”

“ Besides, you have to be awake to all contingencies. If war with the Eurasians breaks out, the Moon is going to look all the better. It’s the high ground of the Earth-Moon system.”

“ Except the libration points. Except this fortress.”

“ Technically that’s true. But I’m willing to bet that the Moon can sustain a damn sight more damage than this place.”

“ But why didn’t you activate me as Manilishi before I left for the Moon? Why wait till I got there?”

“ Because activating you meant restoring your true memories.”

“ My true memories?” Her voice is taut.

“ Once they were restored, your loyalty would have been a wild card without the proper precautions. As the Rain found out the hard way. What’s wrong?”

Tears are running down her face. “You know what’s wrong, you sick fuck. How can I tell what my real memories are?”

“ Because that’s what we linked your activation to.”

“ Fuck you and your sophistry! How do I know they’re real?”

“ How do you know anything’s real? Claire, you need to get past the past. You’re beyond the range of ordinary definition now. What happened to you back then doesn’t matter. All that matters is what happens now.”

She takes a deep breath. “What happens now is you keep talking.”