When the Dust Fell, page 29
The room was poorly lit and only barely furnished. A steel table and a heavy metal stool with an adjustable seat were its only occupants besides Kino. He got up from the stool to clear his head and walk off the urge to vomit. The room already smelled bad enough. After several laps around the table and stool he heard the tumbler of the lock on the door turn. Seconds later Lonny walked into the room, a jingle of coins in his steps.
“The vest is off,” Lonny announced. “All clear.”
“It’s about fucking time.” Kino began to pick at the tape around his hand.
As he worked, Lonny slowly pulled a Ruger Super Blackhawk .480 from the back of his pants. The giant gun hung down well below the man’s knees, looking more like a small rifle than a pistol. Lonny producing a weapon wasn’t particularly surprising. The mayor’s forgiveness was never a guarantee. A Super Blackhawk though? That was unexpected. The .480 seemed like overkill, even for a killing. Kino wondered if Lonny possessed the strength to keep the Ruger’s notorious kick in check.
When he’d gotten enough of the tape peeled away to move his thumb freely, he acknowledged the heavy, Old West styled revolver suspended at the man’s side. “That’s not your usual piece.”
“No. But this is a special occasion. I thought, seeing as we are old friends, I would help you go out with a boom.”
“Bang, Lonny. A person goes out with a bang.”
Lonny shook his head and closed the door behind him. “Thank you for making this easy, Kino.”
“I got the mayor what he wanted, Lonny. And then some.” The rest of the tape was off, and he stretched the digits of his hand. “Don’t tell me he’s pissed about the car.”
Lonny laughed, his white teeth gleaming against his skin in the dim yellow of the room. “No, he is not angry over the car.”
“Then what?”
“The game, Kino.”
“The game?”
“The one you and the mayor played. At the start of this adventure.”
“What’s the problem?”
“The problem is you won.” Lonny raised the long barrel of the Ruger with his right hand and pointed it at Kino. “At least you are off The List, old friend.”
“This is a mistake, Lonny.”
“This is me following orders, Kino. And enjoying it, I might add.”
“No, Lonny. The mistake is thinking you can shoot that bazooka straight with one hand.”
47
The late daylight hit the roofs and glass of the buildings at a steep angle and sent shards of color and flash into the world. Trin marveled at the city’s scale. While he’d seen dozens of images in the Omni data capture, it was another thing to see it with his own eyes. Its primitive nature was evident in digital and it was there in person, but the captured information compressed its enormity and dimmed the obvious genius of its architects. In facsimile the vibrance of their ambition and dreaming had been drained. Now, seeing what was made and what had been unjustly lost cast a shadow on him as long and dark as those the giants below him threw upon the ground.
The forward console showed the source of the signal as a red dot slowly pulsing and surrounded by data detailing its various geographical characteristics. When his coordinates and those of the signal finally matched, the dot turned green. He was much higher than the bot, his view more expansive. He recognized the footprint of the large building over which the little bot hovered so diligently. The place where Sarah was. He could also see the nature of the box he was in.
There was little movement on the ground. Other than some light traffic of vehicles along the broader streets, the park around the building looked empty and quiet.
He descended to a level closer to the bot, and when he reached the point where he no longer had line of sight to the streets, he halted. Transport 5 followed his lead. They waited there to see if their presence might alter the activity around the building in any way. The sun kept on its descent and soon the building was plunged into shadow.
“I’m going in for a closer look,” he said.
“Negative,” from the comm. “Captain asks for Worlding before any additional actions.”
“Correction,” Wildei’s voice now. “This is Kalelah actual. And I insist.”
Trin didn’t reply except to turn the scanners on. A beat later he confirmed their operation. “Replication active.”
He pictured the CC’s great imaging column, the giant tube of holographic light ringed by a bank of workstations with Wildei at the center of it, nervously pacing around perfectly replicated versions in fractional scale of 18 and 5 and surrounded by exactly the environment he was. As long as 18 and 5 could scan in all directions, Wildei and the CC could share his world in three dimensions. It was the kind of babysitting that invited opinion, slowed things down, and drove him out of his mind. This time, though, he liked the call. After what had happened to 12 and 1—the way that missile had come fast and by surprise—maybe a little company and some extra eyes couldn’t hurt.
“It looked bad in the mapping, and I don’t like it any better in the real,” Wildei said.
It was what they’d all thought it would be, a tight box with tall sides, and he and 5 at the bottom of it. “There’s always the chance it looks worse than it is,” he said.
“How’s our luck been lately?”
“I’m too close now to leave, Captain.”
“I know, darling. But no feet on the ground. Keep an exit open. It’ll be a while before we have a pop count and detailing.”
“5, Captain’s right. This box looks like shit. Go home. This is my hunt anyway.”
“Negative, 18. The whole point of four transports instead of one was redundancy. Now we’re down to two. You need me. Besides, it’s not just your hunt, sir. I fought with Sarah three years ago. It’s my hunt too.”
“All right, 5. Then let’s say hello.”
They guided their vessels in a descent toward the open space of the park just below the roofline of the large stone building, where they stayed to wait again. In that particular spot between the ground and the sky they were nearly even with a long row of tall windows. Although the rooms belonging to those windows were dark, there was the unmistakable presence of people. The unmistakable sense that he and 5 were being watched. The watchers were no more recognizable than figures of silhouette. Faceless, colorless, dark cutouts that rocked on their heels, put a hand to a featureless face, or turned to address one another. Only by their shapes and stature could he guess even their genders. He counted five men, two women. If they were friend or foe, Trin could not say. If one was Sarah or not, he could not say. He’d said hello. That was all he knew.
The transports held that same position without movement and the two parties continued to watch each other until the sun fell fully beyond the grasp of day and the night returned. Large lamps set at intervals along pathways in the park went white with electricity and punched holes of detail and color into the dark. Other than the still unrecognizable figures solemnly guarding the windows of the big building, Trin saw no one in any other window or on the ground. He calculated the actual distance between himself and the small group of watchers. It was mere meters. In that long moment of waiting, a moment of stubbornness or fear or contrivance, that distance seemed as far as he had traveled in all his life. Lightyears.
The comm broke in. “Transports, we have an early pop count. You’ve got a big audience there.”
“How big?” asked Trin.
“One thousand and forty-two so far within the scan lines.”
“Shit.”
“Exactly. That’s the thought on this end.” Wildei’s voice. “Two transports hovering for hours and no one shows their face?”
“I’m going to open the hatch,” Trin said.
“Negative. It’s been long enough, darling. It’s time to come home.”
“This is the right place. I know it.”
“Then, tell me, where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. We both do. We talked about this scenario. The bot may have been hers, but it may not be anymore.”
“Give her a little more time.”
“Trin, if that’s what’s happened, then the box isn’t a box anymore. It’s a killing field.”
He took the holster from its stowage and buckled it around his waist. He gestured the hatch and a thin shaft of white lamplight fell across his face.
48
Now that the moment had come, Sarah was more regretful than relieved. It was a mistake to have launched the bot. It brought help from the Kalelah, but with it had also come trouble.
How small the transports looked away from the reflected enormity of the Kalelah. There, lined up in numbers enough to be called a fleet, they looked like soldiers at the ready, united in form and cause. They were part of the sweeping magic of the place, enchanted and spellbinding. Here, they looked less like magic and more like magic tricks, like quaint deceptions for the purpose of entertainment. PR stunts. Minivans floating in the air, a promotional freezeframe from an action movie about soccer moms. Only their injuries gave them any dignity. Their beautifully mirrored skins that would reflect the dock lighting in such bewitching ways were broken, burnt, and torn. She had done this to them. She had done all of it.
She walked away from the windows and sat down against the wall with her arms around her knees. On her way she passed the Kelly woman, who had an anxious pall to her face and stood nearer to the back of the room than the windows. The others present were security details, large and silent men charged with keeping Sarah where the mayor wanted.
Nader sat facing the window in a club chair near the glass, his legs crossed, his suit freshly pressed, and his eyes never straying from the situation outside. Spread as they were, those mismatched eyes, taking the world in from divergent angles, Sarah imagined they enabled the mayor to hold two equally divergent opinions at once. A man who could comfortably be of two minds. He might be a person who could happily switch sides in any argument because he knew that either side was his side. If that were true, could anyone ever truly negotiate with such a man?
“So, what do we do now?” the Kelly woman asked.
“We wait,” Nader stated.
“For how long?”
“Until they tire of waiting.”
“What if they’re thinking the same thing?”
The mayor sat for a minute before responding. “What’s your opinion on the matter, Sarah? Are they patient? Or are they ready to rip the doors off this place?”
“They don’t know anything about the situation; they’re only responding to a signal.”
The mayor turned in his chair to face Sarah, who remained against the back wall. “A signal you sent.”
“That’s right.”
He smiled. “A signal you sent for us. To advance our cause.”
“I don’t have any cause with you,” she said incredulously. “Now I’m sorry I did it at all.”
“That’s only what you tell yourself.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
He smiled. “Why did you leave the ship, Sarah?”
“You know why. I left to get my sister.”
He adjusted his place on the chair and faced her more fully. “That’s your story. Though maybe not the honest one.”
“I know what I did.”
“Bear with me. Who leaves the relative comfort of a miracle from another world to slog her way through the wild wasteland that has become our little corner of the galaxy? A person with a sister in distress, you say. It might be so, but there are other possibilities that could describe that person. In fact, when I first saw that beautifully murderous video of you in Liberty Park, I went through a fascinating litany of exactly who the perpetrator of such elegant erasures might be. You were Sarah Long, of course. The Sarah Long. That much was obvious. But were you Sarah the escapee who broke from her alien captors? Were you Sarah the fugitive who ran from the claws of alien justice? Perhaps you were Sarah the spy sent to blend in where her alien patrons cannot? More than likely, I thought, you were one of those Sarahs. Then something about the French girl’s story got me thinking. When it turned out to be true—there really was a sister in Lancaster, Ohio—well, my train of thought really picked up speed.”
“You think too much,” Sarah said.
He got up from his chair and found a bottle of wine on a polished high top, poured a glass, and drained it half away in one drink. With the hand that held the glass he pointed to the window. “The truth is right out that window. You could have retrieved your sister the easy way. You had things of magic all around you. Why didn’t you borrow one of those stingrays out there and get her? If you couldn’t borrow one, why didn’t you simply ask for a ride? Clearly they would have given you one. They came all this way just because you sent a signal. You chose to do it the hard way, including a trip on my wretched boat. You know what that’s called, Sarah?”
“No.”
“The hero’s journey. Sarah, you chose to suffer.”
“I needed to go alone, that’s all.”
“No, Sarah, it isn’t all.” He put the wine down and grabbed the edges of the tall table as if it was a podium and he a minister of some deranged congregation.
She had that feeling she’d had before, that his eyes, those divergent eyes, saw the pieces of her and rearranged them as she was, and it frightened her like almost nothing else had ever frightened her.
“Do you know why you took the path you did?” he asked.
“Why don’t you tell me? You’re going to anyway.”
“Because it was the only one that would lead you to me. Which is the only one that leads you to you.”
“That’s not true,” Sarah said softly, the words ringing in her ears. “It can’t be true.”
As she stood to move away from him to end his crazed sermon, a loud gasp took the air out of the room and the Kelly woman ran to the glass from her spot near the back. “Oh my God,” she said.
An opening began to cut its way through the skin of one of the transports. It traced a path to a perfect rectangle, and when it was finished the shape slowly pushed out and to the side of the ship.
Then it was Sarah who ran to the glass. She pounded at the window to get his attention. She screamed his name over and over. He didn’t hear her.
The mayor walked to the glass and stood next to her. His eyes focused on the open hatch floating above the park, his face lit by a smile. “So this must be the proud father. Handsome fellow.” He raised a radio to his mouth and into it spoke a single word. “Rifles.”
49
The hatch door opened wide and cool air, moist and redolent, rushed into the cabin. Trin stepped closer to the sill of the opening and waited. He ignored Wildei’s cautions that continued to sound from the comm. Something had to break the stalemate. Something had to give him an answer. He surveyed the darkened windows before him and one in particular caught his attention. The lights from the lamps below threw orbs of white upon the windows, and on one window the orb was bouncing just a little. Was that window vibrating? He stepped onto the sill itself to see if he could get a better look.
The punch hit before he heard the sound. It was hard and sharp, and it shoved him back into the cabin where he collided against the seat of his chair and fell to the nano floor of the transport.
“What the fuck?”
“Trin!” Wildei’s voice. “Close that damned door!”
He pushed himself up and grabbed the seat back to take the weight off his leg, which burned like fire and was suddenly unwilling to take orders from his head. A noise filled the space, loud and percussive, disorienting, like hail made of titanium bearings. It echoed off the walls of the tight quarters, building on itself as if a storm of long-suppressed anger suddenly found the will to express itself.
He crawled his way back toward the hatch away from its opening and gestured the door closed. The storm outside continued to rage while he sat up against the wall next to the hatch and tried to get a grip on what was happening.
“What do you see?” he yelled above the din.
“Projectile bursts, multiple origins,” from the comm.
“How’s 5?”
“Holding up. What’s your status?”
“Checking.”
It took him seconds to determine his status was shit. The right side of his jumpsuit was soaked red from the thigh down, a hole the size of a fist in the fabric.
As suddenly as the storm began, it stopped. In the quiet, the pain had him all to itself.
“Fuck me.”
“What happened?” Wildei’s voice. “Are you hurt?”
“Something tore a hole in my leg.”
“That’s it. 18, 5, get the fuck out of there.”
“No. I saw something,” Trin said.
“I don’t care, Trin. We’re done. Deploy the doc, stop the bleeding, get out.”
“Captain, please—”
POOM!
A thunderous blast exploded outside the transport and pushed a sickening wave of shock through the little cabin.
“5 report!” the comm shouted.
POOM!
Another thunderclap. Trin was tossed to his side, his leg trailing, unable to help control his slide, and in such pitiful agony as to bring dancing specks of light before his eyes.
