David Williams - Mirrored Heavens

For the life of them neither Marlowe nor Haskell can see what’s so funny.

“This manifesto,” says Matthew Sinclair. “It’s a joke. They know it. And they know we know it too.”

“Then why did they write it?” asks Marlowe.

“Because,” says Sinclair, “they wanted people to talk about it.”

Looks like they got their wish. People can’t shut up. Information’s traffic flows like light and quenches like water. It’s never the same thing twice. When you think you’ve caught it in your hands, it’s already changed forever. But here’s the thing about information.

It can’t compete with rumor.

“Wiping out the Elevator would have accomplished that,” says Haskell.

“Right,” says Sinclair, “but this way they lay claim to an identity .”

Some identity. Some name. Autumn Rain: do those words contain the keys to the mind that’s set all this in motion? Does this manifesto lay out their real agenda? It hints at utter madness. It suggests the outlines of something all too sane.

“Yet the population of this country hasn’t read it,” says Marlowe.

“Not officially,” says Haskell.

“Exactly,” says Sinclair. “Keep in mind, too, that what’s said is a lot less important than the fact that something’s being said.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning this document’s words don’t matter. Not in the slightest.”

“I don’t know,” says Haskell. “Those words might sound pretty inspiring to someone who’s looking for a reason to hate the government.”

“Not inspiring,” says Sinclair, “insipid. Read it again. ‘For too long have those you call leaders mortgaged your future’? ‘All of history has waited for this moment’? It’s one big joke. On us. Claims of nomenclature notwithstanding. It means nothing. Nothing at all. Which isn’t to say there aren’t meanings hidden within it. Invert comedy, you get tragedy. We’ve got both now. So we’re looking at it from every angle. We’re parsing every phrase.”

He goes back and forth, thinks Haskell. She looks at the face projected on that screen and wonders at the contradictions it utters, contains. She looks at that face, struggles to contain herself. She feels her heart overflowing: looking at that man right now, beard sharpened to a fine point, shaved skull extruding metal, metal walls behind him.

Just like she always dreamt him.

“But we haven’t succeeded in finding anything yet,” says Marlowe.

“Ever the practical one, Jason,” says Sinclair. “No. We haven’t. We’ve deployed specialists to calibrate the minds behind these words. They can’t tell us anything. They can’t even tell us if it was written by human or machine. They’re useless.”

Haskell shakes her head. “Then why are we talking about it?”

“Because,” says Sinclair, “it’s not their minds I’m interested in right now. It’s yours. The Rain?—they’re out there somewhere. Assuredly. But you’re right here.”

“And where are you?” says Marlowe.

“Exactly where you see me,” replies Sinclair.

“On that screen,” says Haskell.

“Yes, Claire,” says Sinclair. “On this screen. But right here with you all the same. For the first time among so many times, you’re not recollecting me in the trance. You gaze upon me in the moment. We’ve got no time for anything else.”

“How can we be sure you’re really Matthew Sinclair?” asks Marlowe.

“How can you ever?” says Sinclair. “I like you, Jason. I like your verve and butchery. But I also like Claire. She’s so different from my others. Truth to tell, I can’t decide which of you I like more. That’s why I’ve brought you here.”

“To find out?” asks Haskell.

“If you like,” says Sinclair. He seems amused. “You sit and watch me on this screen. You think I pull your strings. It’s an easy illusion to subscribe to. But what you must understand is that you’re the ones who hold the power. Because you’re the ones who go out into the world.”

“To be tested,” says Marlowe.

“To be sure,” says Sinclair. “And these times test us as never before. Jason: Claire will be your razor. She’ll pull your strings. Claire: when you first met Jason, he was just starting out. Now he’s one of our best mechs. You’re going to have to work to keep up with him. I think the two of you are going to like working together. But even if you don’t, you’re going to have to act like you do if you want to survive where you’re going.”

“And where are we going?”

“To stop the Rain, of course,” says Sinclair.

“And we really know nothing about them?” asks Haskell.

“Of course we know something about them,” says Sinclair. “We know that they got onto the biggest thing our species ever built and turned it into junk.”

“Right,” says Haskell. “Thanks.”

“You don’t understand,” says Sinclair. “They didn’t just destroy the Elevator. They got on it. They got into its core stations. And they didn’t want us to know they’d done that.”

“How do we know that?” asks Marlowe.

“Surely your minds are sharper than this. The Rain was clearly hoping to use proxies to do their work. And to destroy the Elevator at a distance rather than reveal to us just how thoroughly they’d penetrated its security. They gave the Jaguars hypersonics. Ground-to-grounders that knocked out almost ten percent of our equatorial launch architecture. And yet those were a mere diversion from the ground-to-spacers those Jaguars were firing simultaneously. They almost got the Elevator.”

“But they didn’t,” says Haskell.

“What makes you so sure the Jaguars and the Rain aren’t one and the same?” says Marlowe.

“Please,” says Sinclair. “The Jaguars are formidable. Both of you did well to face them. But don’t let your emotional involvement distract you from the fact that they’ve never manifested spacefaring capabilities. We don’t even think they have the expertise to build hypersonics on their own. So we’re pretty sure that someone gave them those weapons. Someone who also rigged seventeen neutral satellites with space-to-spacers. Think of it—someone infiltrated the ground-to-space supply networks of two of the Euro combines. Someone sent up rockets instead of spare parts. Someone configured robots to rig those rockets. Someone did all that right under our noses.”

“And it didn’t work,” says Haskell. “Which forced them to play their ace.”

“Indeed,” says Sinclair. “As hard as it was to rig the neutrals—as difficult a feat as that might seem—getting onto the Elevator was even harder. And getting fission devices into its control centers should have been impossible. Which is why they didn’t want us to see that they could do that.”

“What makes you say they themselves were on it?” asks Marlowe. “Maybe they just hacked it.”

“Right,” says Sinclair. “Now you’re asking the right questions. Let’s break down the events: 18:20 local time—the Jags unleash hell on heaven and earth; 18:22—rogue space-to-spacers rigged on the satellites of the Lvov and Wessex Combines bracket vacuum. But nothing touches our behemoth. The def-grids of its escorts take down everything that even comes close. Now. What happens then?”

“It blows up,” says Marlowe.

“Fourteen minutes later,” says Haskell.

“Without warning.”

“From the inside.”

“True enough,” says Sinclair. “True up to a point. That much you know. Now let me tell you what you don’t. The official record says that nothing happened on the Elevator before the blasts that finished it. But that’s not quite accurate. T-minus twenty minutes: we get a tip from some of the workers coming off shift that some of the workers who’ve just gone on shift aren’t really workers. We move in on one squad in particular. We start busting people. One of our ships gets taken out. We take out everyone in sight. T-minus sixteen minutes: the Jaguars open up. T-minus fourteen: the rigged neutrals follow suit. T-minus thirteen: the Bridge goes offline, along with its entire garrison. Offline as in not responding to anything whatsoever. T-minus twelve: all the Elevator’s engines fire in reverse on full throttle. The thing starts slowing down. Not gently either. Hundreds of construction workers start getting knocked into space. Pieces of construction start flying off too. SpaceCom marines scramble from nearby orbital platforms. The Elevator’s starting to drag atmosphere. Nadir Station’s starting to get warm. But structural integrity’s still intact. Zenith Station is still reporting in. They’re seeing nothing. They’re evacuating. Marines from east and west are closing in. A DE cannon rigged just aft of the Bridge opens up on them, gets some of them, gets itself blasted into powder. The marines get in there. They land. They enter the Bridge. And then—nothing but white light.”