David Williams - Mirrored Heavens

And holds on.

Light blasts from somewhere behind him. Something slams straight through his suit and brain and just keeps going. Vibration washes over him in waves. He knows the hammer in his skull for concussion. He knows the wetness in his ears for blood. He feels the acceleration full against him. He pulls himself up along the turbine and hauls himself over the fuel tanks. He feels heat—even as he leaves the engine behind and gets out on the hull once again. But the warmth’s quickly vanishing. The temperature’s dropping.

Steadily. His suit’s clearly holed somewhere. Maybe he snagged it. Maybe it’s just burning through. Regardless, he’s starting to get short of breath. He’s starting to see stars for real now. The ship rumbles against him. It’s all he can do to hold on. He knows his time’s down to single seconds.

So he cheats. His hand goes to his boot knife. His knife goes to the air tank on his back, stabs in, rips along it. Air shoots out. The Operative positions himself: lets go of the cable, lets himself slide back along the hull. He feels air shoving him. He feels air being sucked from him: he takes one last breath, reaches out to the door, grasps the hatch, holds on while his vision starts flashing. Dissipating air’s momentum tries to haul him onward. He jettisons the tank, pulls himself in, slams the hatch behind him, seals it. Black and red press in upon his vision. He strikes his hand against the inner door.

It opens. Riley’s face is staring into his own—now unmediated by visor as the Operative hauls his helmet off and gulps in air. Riley looks at him, says something.

“Save your breath,” says the Operative. “I can’t hear a fucking thing.”

Together, they make their way back toward the cockpit.

Together they rise into the skies. The Citadel drops away beneath them. The tether to which they’re clinging is retracting rapidly. The city starts to spread out beneath them. There’s no electricity left in it now, only flame. Smoke billows from countless fires. The lights in the sky shimmer on those rising clouds.

“Here they come,” says the mech.

The militia are swarming onto the roof. Four suits are flashing past them—rising toward the two who cling to the tether. But as the suits pass the tower, there’s a flash: the top of the structure is blown apart by the charge the mech rigged there. White-hot phosphorus flings itself everywhere. Bodies fly. Two of the suits get taken out.

But two remain. They climb. They’re opening fire. Haskell and the mech do the only thing they can: let go, drop along that tether, grab it again. Shots rip past them. It’s a trick that only works once. There’s nowhere left to go. They fire desperately at the closing suits.

Which suddenly get riddled. Hails of bullets rain down from long range, dissect the suits almost simultaneously. Chunks tumble back into the city below.

“About time,” says the mech.

But Haskell doesn’t answer. She’s just staring at the thing that’s spreading out across the sky. It’s like nothing she’s ever seen.

“The roof’s caving in,” she says.

She’s not kidding. Gigantic streaks of orange and white are sliding across the sky, glowing ever brighter as they drip in toward the horizon. They’re what’s left of the Elevator. They’re what happens when something big meets atmosphere. She can’t tell where this mother of all meteor strikes is going to hit. She only knows that it’s going to change the world forever when it does. It looks like it’s coming right down on her head. She’s guessing the real impact will be somewhere to the east. But that’s almost worse. The tidal waves set in motion will put both sides of the Atlantic beneath the water. It will be the kind of event that only satellites witness. Only the damned will see much more than that.

Suddenly the sky above them goes white. It’s like the Earth has been thrust up against a supernova. Final nightfall’s ripped apart by false dawn. The superpowers have combined to destroy their joint creation. The def-grids on both sides have unleashed. Warheads are striking home from stations elsewhere on the planet. Directed energy’s blasting down from space. Crossfire becomes annihilation. There’ll be nothing left to hit the ocean. EMP drenches them anew.

“I’m blind,” Haskell says.

“Me too.”

But not permanently. And eventually their sight fades back in. To reveal a city that’s now a distant fire and a sky that’s still a long way from black.

And this tether hanging in between.

“Where are we going?” says Haskell.

“The only kind of craft that’s guaranteed to still be up here after all that EMP.”

“A zeppelin.”

“Exactly. I passed several on the way down.”

“Then you kicked off in style.”

“And you?”

“I think they briefed me off the coast and shipped me in.”

“What do you remember before that?”

“You.”

And the mech starts to say something, stops. Opens his mouth again.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“I just mean you’re familiar.”

“How would you know?”

Because she saw his moves under pressure. Because she was inside his head. Because the whole time she’s been fighting for her life she’s been fighting the realization that the man she’s with is more than a stranger. She wants to tell him all this. She wants to tell him that he’s the living ghost of memory. But she’s not sure.

And she needs to be.

“Because I’ve seen you before.”

“This has been tough,” says the mech. “You need some rest.”

“But first I need your name.”

“My real one?”

“No,” she sneers, “just one of the ones you’ve discarded.”

“You’re asking me to break regulations.”

“Is that so bad?”

“It is if I comply.”

“Did regulations stop the sky from tumbling? Did regulations save that city from dying?”

“They might yet see us through this mess.”

“They’re what caused this mess,” she says. “They’re the root of the fucking problem.”

“Heads up,” he says.

A shape is looming out of the night above them. It’s hundreds of meters in length. It blots out the stars. It blots out afterglow. It’s hauling in the remainder of the tether.

“We’re here,” he says.

Rough hands grab them, haul them inside a room on one level of a much larger gondola. Haskell and the mech watch while the soldiers who’ve just pulled them in pull in the remainder of the tether. They stare at each other while a burning city floats through the dark several klicks below.

“You’re Jason Marlowe,” says Haskell.

“And you are?”

“Who do you think?”

She removes her mask with one hand, brushes brown hair back with the other. He stares at freckles and sweat—pulls off his own mask to reveal black hair and a bloody nose.

“Hello,” says Haskell.

“Fuck’s sake,” he says—and steps forward to embrace her. But she just steps away, leans back against the window.

“I knew it was you,” she says.

“They didn’t tell me.”

“Didn’t tell me either.”

“Guess they’ve got other things on their mind right now.”

There’s a pause. Soldiers continue to move around them, closing the trapdoor through which they’ve just come, storing away the tether. One of them turns to Marlowe and Haskell.

“You’re both wanted in the medbay,” he says.

“In a minute,” says Marlowe.

“Now,” the man replies. “We need you out of this room so we can lock it down.”