David Williams - The Burning Skies

So she takes what precautions she can. If the Rain retain some secret thing inside her—some secret key to her, in spite of all her precautions—they might see what’s in her brain’s software. They might see what’s in her mind.

But they won’t see what’s on her own skin—what she’s drawn upon it. Across the hours, in the oily darkness of the holds of spaceships, surrounded by the clank of machinery, she’s pricked maps upon that skin, scarred that skin, painted it all in her own blood: all her calculations, all her strategy, whole swathes of blueprint of zone upon her limbs and chest— both zones, and the neutral ones, too—endless geometries of virtual architecture, endless coordinates in no-space. Insight’s a myriad bloody slashes all across her. Knowledge is no longer fleeting now that it’s etched upon her.

She studies endless patterns, looking for what all the others may have missed. Twenty-four hours since thwarting the war, and a nagging disquiet is stealing through her. Forty-eight hours, and that disquiet has become a fear unlike any she’s ever known.

Now it’s been ninety-six hours. The conversation with Sinclair has confirmed what she’s been thinking. She’s so scared she feels like her mind’s coming apart. Worse, as long as she was slicing herself, she was forgetting Jason. But now she’s got nothing more to cut.

She’s got nothing more to learn either. She knows exactly where she needs to be: right where she is now. Crosshairs slide together in her mind. She feels herself start gliding forward.

The chamber in which Leo Sarmax awoke is almost identical to the one that the Operative just left. The difference is it contains only a single additional door.

And a phone.

“ A what?” asks Sarmax.

“ A phone,” says the Operative, gesturing at the small device that’s set into one wall. “Archaic communication device phased out by the middle of the last century.”

“ Carson. I know what a fucking phone is.”

“ Then why’d you ask?”

“ Because that’s not a phone.”

“ Yeah?”

“ That looks like nothing I’ve ever seen.”

“ That’s because it’s a real antique.”

“ Yeah?” asks Sarmax.

“ Ma Bell, baby. Twentieth century.”

“ So what the fuck’s it doing here?”

“ I’m guessing somebody rigged it.”

“ Why?”

“ Well,” says the Operative, “that’s the big question, isn’t it?”

“ And you don’t remember the answer?”

“ No, I don’t.”

“ You don’t remember anything about why we’re here?”

“ That’s a negative.”

“ Those fucking bastards ,” says Sarmax.

“ So what’s new?” replies the Operative tonelessly.

“ Would have thought you’d have been promoted above this kind of bullshit.”

“ Career trajectory’s a bitch.”

“ Would have thought the handlers would be showing me more gratitude for walking back in their door.”

“ Gratitude’s not in their vocabulary, Leo. We need to figure this out from first principles.”

They stare at each other.

“ You first,” says Sarmax.

“ Okay,” says the Operative. He gestures at Sarmax’s rifle. “For a start, we’ve got some new tech.”

“ Not just my rifle. My armor. Your armor.”

“ Straight off the Praetorian R&D racks, I’m guessing.”

“ Let’s hope so,” says Sarmax.

“ And we were placed in rooms in close proximity to one another.”

“ But not in the same room.”

“ Presumably to allow each of us some warning time if the other got nailed. Have you tried that door out of here?”

“ It’s sealed,” says Sarmax. “Could blow it open, but I’m not sure that’s a good move. Have you tried the zone of wherever the fuck we are?”

“ The zone’s off-limits.”

“ Meaning what?”

But the Operative’s not sure he has the answer. All he’s got is the fact that the zone-interfaces in his armor are switched off, as are those within his head. He could switch them on, but he doesn’t. Because a certain feeling’s brewing in him. He’s starting to piece together what this all must mean in aggregation.

“ We’re on a stealth mission.”

“ Which makes no sense,” says Sarmax.

“ Doesn’t it,” says the Operative mildly.

“ Obviously. How the fuck can we be stealthy if you can’t cover us in zone?”

The Operative mulls this over. He understands Sarmax’s anxiety. All the more so because he shares it. Hacking an enemy’s systems is how one stays undetected. It’s how one stays ahead of the eyes. But these last few days have witnessed the death of a lot of assumptions. And the current situation is setting in motion some nasty questions.

“ The Throne’s handlers are changing up the game,” says the Operative carefully. “They’re reversing the normal procedure. They’re terrified of Rain penetration of the zone. Clearly whatever terrain we’re in—”

“ And we don’t know where that is.”

“— clearly it’s vulnerable. But as long as we’re off the zone we’re probably running silent.”

“ Silent? We step in front of one camera with the wrong camo settings and we’re fucked.”

“ Have you seen any cameras, Leo?”

“ What?”

“ Have. You. Seen. Any. Cameras.”

“ No. I haven’t.”

“ Maybe there’s a reason for that.”

“ I don’t like this one fucking bit.”

“ Wish you were back administering your little corporate empire?”

“ Not with the Throne unwilling to leave me the fuck alone.”

Not with my lover dead , he might have said. Can’t beat ’em, join ’em , he could have muttered. But he doesn’t. And the Operative knows better than to press the point.

Suddenly there’s a jangling noise. It’s coming from the vintage phone.

“ Pick it up,” says the Operative.

“ You must be joking.”

“ That’s our connection with whatever’s going on beyond these rooms.”

Apart from what’s happening in the Operative’s skull. For even as the phone rings, something’s expanding within his mind. Some kind of heads-up display—set on automatic release?—he doesn’t know. He suddenly realizes who’s on the other end of the line, gets a glimpse of what’s really going on. He picks the receiver up, holds it between himself and Sarmax while the helmets of both men amplify the sound.