David Williams - Mirrored Heavens

Haskell looks at her. Her hair’s dirty blond. Strands of it hang across her face. But she still looks all too like the child that Haskell remembers.

“You used to wear your hair so short,” says Haskell. Her voice catches. She can barely hold back the tears now.

“Times change, Claire.”

“And now you’re massacring city sectors.”

“You had to be convinced you were dealing with a rogue AI. Believe me, we could have done far worse.”

“So it’s you who’s in charge of this?”

“We’re all in charge, Claire. What we’ve done in HK, what we did to that Elevator, what we’re about to do to the world: the responsibility is ours.”

“I’ll say,” says Haskell.

“We had to seize it,” says the man. “It was either that or keep on running from people who had bred us to kill only to decide it was us who needed killing.”

“You’re part of this,” says the woman. “Don’t deny it. We’re back from the dead. And now we’re going to show the world a whole new way to fight .”

“So watch the dance of the puppets,” says Morat.

The screens light up all along the walls.

Time on the edge of nothing. Time to churn up shapes that flit through shadow. Time since they dosed you: more than eighty minutes. Time you started seeing…

“You gaze upon Paynal, Spencer. The living incarnation of the lightning. The messenger of the Hummingbird that men call Huitzilopochtli and that your people will know as the instrument of their destruction.”

“Fuck,” says Linehan suddenly. He’s laughing like a crazy man. He’s laughing like he’s on the ayahuasca too. “Listen cat-man: this man works for a low-rent gang of data thieves called Priam. Bunch of mercenaries looking to make a buck. He’s got nothing to do with anything you’re talking about.”

“But he does,” says Paynal. “Has the little death granted you no insight? This man you call Spencer works for the ones you call Information Command. The handler you call Control works for Stephanie Montrose. Who reports directly to that monstrosity you call your Throne.”

Linehan stares at him. Then he swivels his head in Spencer’s direction.

“Goddamn you, Spencer. Is this maniac right?”

“I don’t know,” mutters Spencer. “I don’t fucking know.”

“There was a time when all the men and women under heaven knew their own names,” says Paynal. “Now we live in a world where faces are shadows and mirrors treachery. A world where humans are sundered from their pasts. It was to prolong such a world that this man was set like a snare to lie in wait for the last survivor of a wayward team running from their SpaceCom masters. A snare set by the vultures of InfoCom. Spencer’s leaders put him in your path, Linehan. They sought to dangle bait that would attract the Rain themselves. But how were they to know how adept our claws are at slipping flesh from hooks? Now we have the living proof of how the Yanquis themselves brought down their own edifice. This man Linehan has already made a full confession. Soon we shall broadcast his statement to the world.”

“And while you’re at it,” snarls Spencer, “make sure to tell them how much you’re loving Autumn Rain’s cock. How all you’ve got to offer is more bloodshed and more butchery.”

But Paynal just smiles. “Blood will flow like our Amazon used to before we attain the peace we seek. But the Rain don’t rule us. We treat with them as equals. And tonight we’ll rise to heights your people never dreamt of. Heralded by our releasing your souls to beg the gods to grant victory to the greatest missile strike ever undertaken. We’ll expend ten times the munitions we flung from our cities three days ago. We’ll fire from our hidden bases all along the Andes. We’ll pound hell into the ocean. We’ll smash the Yanquis’ low-orbit facilities into oblivion.”

“But that’s what the Rain wants,” says Spencer. “You do that, and you’ll start war between the superpowers.”

Paynal shrugs. “So much the better.”

“So much the better when we smash you,” screams Linehan. “We’ll raze these fucking mountains and bulldoze what’s left into the fucking sea!”

“Brave words,” says Paynal. “But ours will be merely one blow among many.”

You lie,” says the Operative.

“You wish,” says Matthias. “They sold you out. But I’m offering you the same bargain.”

“Fuck you. Why did you down the Elevator?”

“We didn’t,” says Matthias. “The Rain did.”

“Don’t hand me that shit,” says the Operative. “You gave them the fucking keys . Why?”

“Since you’re so clever: you tell me.”

“In order to drive East-West relations off a cliff.”

“No,” says Matthias. “In order to drive them toward a cliff. Tonight they go over altogether. When we open up at point-blank range upon the L2 fleet.”

“You’re really crazy enough to do that.”

“We’re sane enough to stop at nothing, Carson. Our assault will serve as the necessary provocation that will allow all U.S. forces to evade the fail-safes that keep their weapons from firing without the Throne’s consent. And believe me, what I do to that fleet is going to be nothing compared to what that fleet and all its brethren are going to do to the Eurasian Coalition.”

“You sure about that?”

“Your Praetorian defeatism is well-noted. This president thinks our nation weak. He couldn’t be more wrong. We’ll crush the East completely. Our net-incursions will demolish their zone-integrity. Our speed-of-light weaponry will ensure our country’s cities are left untouched even as their defenses are laid waste. And while we’re obliterating the Coalition, we’ll run the show: we’ll topple the Throne in the first sixty seconds of the war.”

“It’s not like you’re going to make it even that long,” mutters the Operative. “Even if you do fool everybody into thinking that the Eurasians have gotten their tentacles into this place, you and everybody else in Nansen are going to get completely fucking flattened by our own side.”

“You’re boring me, Carson. We’ve dug through these hills. We’ve linked up our tunnels with the caves that honeycomb these mountains. We haven’t deployed a single laser within ten klicks of here. But we have put more than half of them within Eurasian lunar territory. We’ll get off scot-free.”

“Yeah? Or is that just because you’re carrying out the orders of the L2 fleet’s commanders?”

Matthias says nothing.

“You are, aren’t you? I mean, for fuck’s sake tell me it goes higher than you. You’re not the lever that moves the universe, Matthias. I can see it on your face. You’re a small man. You’re a weak man. You’re just carrying out your orders. But your whole gang’s been played like a fiddle by the Rain and now they’re about to shove that fiddle up your ass.”

“Spare me.”

“Spare yourself,” says the Operative, and now he’s almost pleading. “Christ, man, you’re being played for patsy. What else was in those tunnels? Have you explored them all? They’re probably down there even now. They’re using you. Autumn Rain is fucking using you. They want you to pull those fucking triggers.”

“If that’s the case,” says Matthias, “they’re about to get a lot more than they’ve bargained for.”

“I’d say everybody is,” replies the Operative.

Cue the Earth-Moon system on fifty different screens. Some of those screens depict the deployment of the massed weaponry of the superpowers. Some focus on what are expected to be the major battlefronts. Others show the Jaguar citadel in the Andes and the SpaceCom base at Nansen, as well as the strongest of the American and Eurasian fortresses.