The Machinery Of Light Part 36

"Yeah," says the Operative.

"Still a bulls.h.i.t artist till the last, huh?"

"I'm not bulls.h.i.tting you."

"You and I both know that's only the start start of it." of it."

The Autumn Rain hit-teams were just the tip of the iceberg," says Spencer.

"We know know that," says Sarmax. "Who the f.u.c.k do you think you're talking to? Time was I that," says Sarmax. "Who the f.u.c.k do you think you're talking to? Time was I ran ran the Autumn Rain hit-teams for Harri-" the Autumn Rain hit-teams for Harri-"

"The Manilishi was what mattered," says Jarvin.

"You need to know what she really is," mutters Spencer.

The child's billowing through her mind now-like she's in some kind of tunnel, walls flowing ever faster past her. Haskell realizes tears are running down her cheeks. The Moon around her seems to shimmer. Wind chimes ring out-resolve themselves into her own voice. The one from all those years ago.

Only the start of it," repeats Lynx.

"I realize that," says the Operative. He pauses.

"It's all about Haskell-"

"No," says Lynx, "it's f.u.c.king not." "it's f.u.c.king not."

She's just the key," Spencer says.

"To everything," adds Sarmax.

"About time you got involved," says Jarvin.

I don't want to talk to you," she says. don't want to talk to you," she says.

"That doesn't matter," says the child.

"I can't face this."

"Do you remember that time you couldn't speak?"

"When I was seven," she says. "For six weeks."

"I'm seven now," says the girl.

Haskell stares. She remembers being seven-or what she thought at the time was seven, since accelerated genetics had resulted in twenty-four months of real memories layered in by five years of false ones. She recalls six weeks during which she was operated on nearly every day-it suddenly flashes back in her head like another nuke going off, and like some kind of trigger, the psychic vibrations of Sinclair's mind start to pulsate around her, press in against her, show her where he really is. Exactly where she thought he'd be. Her destination- The Room," says Lynx. "That's where all this is going. That's where it's been heading all along."

The Operative nods slowly.

Sinclair created an ultimate sanctuary," says Spencer.

"Containing the real real ultimate weapon," says Jarvin. ultimate weapon," says Jarvin.

"And he's gearing up to switch it on," says Sarmax.

The child subsides toward the endless reaches in the back of her head. She can sense the outer perimeter now, as though it's a faraway light glowing through endless mists. It's still well below her. But there's only one road she can follow. It doesn't surprise her in the slightest when the last set of pursuers moves in behind her.

Sinclair's going to feed Haskell into what he's created," says the Operative.

"Into it?" Lynx looks puzzled. "Now I'm not tracking-" it?" Lynx looks puzzled. "Now I'm not tracking-"

"Christ man! So he can feed off off it!" it!"

"What?"

"Don't you f.u.c.king get it? He's trying to become a G.o.d." He's trying to become a G.o.d."

a.s.sembling computing power so vast no other term would be appropriate," says Spencer. He stares at them both, wonders how to make them see. "It's all about manipulating information information. And the final part of Sinclair's file is all equations. Nothing but f.u.c.king math." math."

"Part of which is some kind of unified field theory," says Jarvin.

"And how the h.e.l.l would you know that?" that?" says Sarmax. says Sarmax.

"Jesus, man, what else could it be? Marry relativity to quantum mechanics, and you'd unlock the secrets of the universe. You could redefine the field of black-ops weaponry-"

"Along with science itself," says Spencer. "These G.o.dd.a.m.n formulas have got symbols that whoever cooked them up had to invent invent along the way." Spencer starts beaming it over. along the way." Spencer starts beaming it over.

"f.u.c.k," says Jarvin. says Jarvin.

"I wonder who did did cook them up?" says Sarmax suddenly. cook them up?" says Sarmax suddenly.

"Try Sinclair's pet AI," says Spencer.

Control. That gutless phantom. The original sneak-sent by its master to wreak havoc upon the opposition-undermining InfoCom the whole time. And doing so much else-she can feel that thing's mind out there somewhere, synthetic sidekick riding shotgun on the brain of Matthew Sinclair.

But her immediate problem is right behind her. It feels like a full-fledged triad, only a few klicks back. The Rain down on the Moon have played their hand at last. And she's playing hers; she accelerates, starts taking these caves in hairpin turns, her position closing on the coordinates she has to make.

And you wanted to sit at his f.u.c.king side while he-"

"Never mind what I wanted," says the Operative.

"You've got the maps." got the maps."

Lynx grins. "d.a.m.n straight," he says.

"d.a.m.n."

"You were figuring you'd just ditch me somewhere in the tunnels?"

"The thought maybe crossed my mind."

"Well, think on it no more."

"I get that," says the Operative.

And he also gets the implications. If Lynx has kept up with him across the last few days-if he was able to decode that file that Sorenson kept in his mainframe, those charts of sublunar terrain forbidden like no other-then Lynx is good enough to be a factor in what's about to take place when everyone hits the Moon. And the Operative's desperate to find more talent to go up against Sinclair. The Operative eyes his own copy of those maps-the endless tunnels stacked beneath Congreve, the arrows that show the approach to the threshold of the Room. He glances at what he knows of the blueprints of the Room itself-looks back at Lynx.

"I know," he whispers. "You can't go back back any farther than when you built it." any farther than when you built it."

Lynx nods. "A time machine isn't a vehicle." vehicle."

It's really more of a place," place," says Spencer. says Spencer.

"The place," says Jarvin.

"And what's down there is about a lot more than just time." time." Spencer's onscreen image glances at Sarmax. "Right, Leo?" Spencer's onscreen image glances at Sarmax. "Right, Leo?"

Sarmax nods. "Sinclair seeded the Earth-Moon system with teleport devices," he says. "Gateways to other such gateways."

"And one device that was an entirely different kind of gate," says Jarvin slowly.

"Which was what the Rain who rebelled against Sinclair got wind of," says Sarmax.

"Along with Morat," says Jarvin. "Jesus Christ. Everyone who mattered in CICom always knew he had an ace in the hole; they just didn't know how out there out there it was. Or how out there it was. Or how out there he he is." is."

"To say nothing of her," her," says Spencer. says Spencer.

But none of them ever had a clue as to what that really meant ... to understand that memories aren't in the past, that portents aren't in the future. To realize that now is all there is. Even as her pursuers close in behind her, that single moment fills her-a single stone dropping through the shafts of eternity. Her mind's something far more than mind now. Every cell in her body's come awake. The outer perimeter of the Room is impending. She can see its lights dead ahead-a pale fraction of the lights that now blaze in every fiber of her being.

So how do you want to do this?" says Lynx.

"Hit that rock and get deeper," says the Operative.

He beams over coordinates. "Via the farside-"

"Too bad there's no teleporter-"

"You said that already."

"Here we go," says Lynx as he gestures at the window.

And Sinclair's there already," says Spencer. "At the Room-"

"Probably," says Sarmax.

"Definitely," mutters Jarvin. "Waiting for her."

"Does she know something he doesn't?" says Spencer.

"I think it's the other way around."

That's when acceleration slams against them like some giant hand- The Operative and Lynx can see it clearly on all their screens. At the vanguard of the Eurasian fleet, the megaships have shifted gears, accelerating at rates the rest of the ships can't hope to match. But they're bringing portions of that fleet with them- "b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," says Lynx.

"Tin-can alley," says the Operative.

The megaships are towing order-of-magnitude more freight this time around. The systems of tethers stretching out to the side of their wakes is that much more complex. About ten percent of the Eurasian fleet is involved in the spearhead's burn-one formation led by each megaship, two vectors driving in upon the Moon ...

"This is going to be good good," says Lynx.

Spencer and Jarvin have to drop momentarily from zone to steady their bodies. They're pressing themselves into corners adjacent to Sarmax, letting the G-forces shove against them as the ship throttles up.

"Who the f.u.c.k's f.u.c.k's driving this thing?" says Spencer. driving this thing?" says Spencer.

"We've lost our link to the engines," says Jarvin. "That f.u.c.king triad that's still out there-"

"Maybe not," says Spencer. He's mulling other possibilities, like the Eurasian leadership itself. After all the precautions they've taken, Spencer wouldn't put it past them to have created one last backup option-equipping the motors of their megaships with stripped-down, primitive computers shorn from the rest of zone, on direct wireless links to their own bunkers. Just enough computer intelligence to take orders and pump bombs. Anything more than that's inviting a little too much trouble. He forwards projected schematics to Jarvin.

"Yeah," says Jarvin, "that's an option, too. Praesidium could be pulling the strings."

"And for all we know Sinclair's pulling theirs," says Sarmax.

Jarvin gestures at the consoles. "That's why you need to have this AI crunch us some equations."

"And decipher the last of Sinclair's code," says Sarmax.

"Let's hope it's a quick study," says Spencer.

The orders flash out from the Harrison: maximum speed. The L2 fleet fires all afterburners and picks up steam as it closes on the farside. The ships are running at a velocity far below the two Eurasian squadrons now burning in toward the Moon's nearside, but the Americans have to cover only a quarter of the distance. The Eurasians won't just be trying to crush the American fleet-they'll be trying to get as many shock-troops as possible onto the lunar surface. Prudence might dictate they take care of the first objective before they worry about the second. But the Operative has a feeling that they might try for both at once.

"Bad news," says Linehan on the comlink.

"No one ever calls with good," mutters Lynx.

The AI is going to town, crunching away on Sinclair's last files while Spencer and Jarvin step back into the zone. Not that there's much to see. All the action seems to be going on out in the real world. The Moon's swelling in the screens. And through the flash of nuclear detonations from the megaships' exhaust can be seen those scores of ships being towed, each one towing so many others, and virtually all of them are- "Troopships," says Sarmax.

"Invasion time," mutters Jarvin.

The contest outside is approaching its climax. Same with the one down here. Sinclair's somewhere below her. But he must have some kind of contingency for the overwhelming strength of the Eurasian fleet. Presumably that contingency involves the Rain triad that's still on the Righteous Fire-Dragon Righteous Fire-Dragon. But as to how she's going to deal with the Rain triad that's right behind her-all she can do is run. She doesn't dare try to stand against them with Sinclair and Control so near at hand. She hurtles forward, reaches a chamber she recognizes from her dreams. That narrow alcove in the corner-just tall enough for a man-or a woman. She steps within as suited figures blast into the room she's left behind, codes flashing through her mind- A M drive's f.u.c.ked," says Linehan. M drive's f.u.c.ked," says Linehan.

The secret weapon of the Harrison Harrison. Not to mention a good chunk of the reason the Operative and his crew fought their way onto this ship in the first place-excepting the now-destroyed Redeemer Redeemer, the flagship is the only vessel employing the prototype antimatter drive. But it hasn't been switched on yet. The Operative was saving that for one final burst of evasive action. He grimaces- "What the f.u.c.k's wrong with the thing?"

"It won't prime," says Linehan.

"Why not?"

"Who the f.u.c.k knows?"

"Did you f.u.c.king check?" check?"

"What do you think we're f.u.c.king doing out here?"