Smoke's Fire Read online

  “Car’s coming,” Silver said over her shoulder. “Going to go check it out.”

  “What about me?” he said. “I can’t…I don’t want to stay here.” He looked from her to Truck and back again.”

  Silver paused briefly. Smoke noted the tense line of her jaw. “Fine,” she said. “Do what you like. Just don’t slow me down.” She had collected the sword from her gear, and wore it slung high on her back, handle jutting out over her left shoulder. The black rifle she carried much more easily than he did, in the crook of her arm. “I mean to be on that thing.” Carter had scrambled to get his gear out of the bags they’d left with Truck.

  “Someone sent it,” Smoke said. “Who?”

  “Whoever’s up there,” Silver said. “The people who did all this.”

  “Just going to walk into their fortress?” Smoke asked, knowing the answer.

  “This was always the plan,” Silver said. “Right? We find a car and take it.” She looked at him. “They’re either up there or they’re not, Smoke. If they are, this car’s an invitation. If they’re not, maybe it’s automatic, caused by us being here. Maybe it’s full of spiders. Who knows? Even if it’s a trap, we have to check it out. We can’t stay here.”

  “Only one way to find out, right?” He knew the answer. The calculus was sound. Every minute they spent here was a minute they lost to Chen and his army of spiders. Why hadn’t they attacked? He had been wondering this for hours, expecting at any minute to hear the rush of hundreds of pointed, insectile feet charging their position. Not even a sighting of one. He nodded at her and held out the helmet he had scrounged for her.

  She shook her head, and he stood awkwardly, holding it. “Give it to Carter,” she said. “He needs it more than I do.”

  Carter joined them and Silver stalked away. Smoke raised an eyebrow at Carter and followed, handing him the helmet with a shrug. They followed Silver under the archway and into the station. It was full night now, and the Unit soldiers were just black shadows against the darker blackness. There was some light, Smoke saw, a dim blueish glow from the high, curved windows fronting the socket.

  “The Elevator cable’s glowing,” Smoke said aloud. “They said it would glow when cars were on it.”

  Silver didn’t answer, but he knew she’d heard him. She angled towards a stairwell’s broad, dramatic steps that climbed up into what Warren had called the passenger terminal. The Unit was holding the cargo terminal and the first few levels of the passenger terminal. Smoke had watched them efficiently block the stairwells to the third and fourth levels with debris barricades when he had explored the place after it was secured.

  He’d wanted to look down into the socket, to see what it looked like. It was, he found, a hole in the ground. The sunlight was fading so the shadows were deep and dark, but he could tell it didn’t look like much. The cable was invisible, even at this close distance. What was it anchored to? How could that anchor have held a thousand years without…what? Maintenance? Even if the spiders here were the maintenance crew…what did the end of the cable hold on to? How deep did it go? Nobody knew and the Unit soldiers he’d asked had been too busy to talk beyond telling him a few basic facts about the place.

  They didn’t know either, he suspected. It was deep though, that much he could tell from here. There were gantries arrayed around the perimeter of the socket, a maze of dark, crane-like structures that reminded him of the articulated arms of a giant spider, or the feeding mandibles of a great, insectile worm. The passenger complex also had large, heavily shielded doors, and he had glimpsed some sort of covered tunnel leading out towards what he’d assumed was a boarding ramp of some kind. Like a jetway on a passenger airline, he had mused, trying to piece it together in his mind, to make sense of how this massive structure operated.

  As they climbed, and reached the lower half of the tall, high windows facing the socket, he finally saw the cable. A thin blue line, impossibly straight, ascending straight from the bottomless well of the socket into the heavens. Straight up and down. He craned his neck upwards, trying to see the car that was descending.

  “Why’s it blue?” Carter asked, staring slack-jawed at the Elevator’s actinic blue line.

  Silver paused, looking up at the Elevator’s pencil-thin blue line before turning back to him. “Lots of power running through it, maybe? Electricity? Something else?” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter why, Carter.” She pointed to the doors, the knots of troopers arrayed in fortified positions facing it. “Looks like they’re ready for it.”

  She spotted Wilson, the woman with the scar tissue, Smoke remembered, and walked over to her. Wilson watched her approach. “Where’s Goldie?” she asked. Wilson had setup a mini-gatling cannon behind a low wall fronting what had once been a food court. The barrels were pointed directly at the doors, Smoke saw. She had two other troopers with her that Smoke did not recognize.

  “With Truck, watching our backs,” Silver said. “Planning to shoot somebody, Wilson?” She nodded at the cannon.

  Wilson snorted. “Precautions, Miss Silver.” She grinned at Silver. “Or is that your first name? I can’t keep it straight.”

  Silver ignored the jibe. “How long? Any idea?”

  “Before that thing gets down here? Hard to say.” Wilson spat. “I’m just supposed to guard those doors.”

  “You think it’s full of spiders?” Smoke asked, drawing a sour stare from one of the troopers crouched near the cannon.

  Wilson shrugged, her cowl slipping from her scarred face. “Could be,” she admitted. “All I know is I’ve seen a lot of crazy shit in this place already, and I know a lot of people went up there that never came back down, so…” She nodded at the cannon. “We’re ready.” She peered at Silver, Smoke, and Carter. “Why’re you up here?”

  Silver nodded at the doors. “Our ride is coming,” she said.

  Wilson was quiet for a long moment. “Yeah, that’s not happening. My orders are nobody in, and nobody out.” She looked Silver in the eyes, her scarred and gnarled brow hooding her own. “Warren know you’re here?”

  Silver opened her mouth to speak, but stopped as the blue light winked out. Smoke’s head snapped around to look and saw the Car. It had just…appeared.

  “Fuck,” Carter breathed. “That was fast.” Around them the Unit troops reacted, sliding into their positions and taking cover behind walls and their piled-up trash barricades. Smoke heard the wave of clicks and snaps as they raised their weapons and clicked safeties off.

  Smoke studied the car. It was a white double-ended teardrop. He could see two articulated arms, one high, one low, each extended behind it.

  Silver stepped forward past the low wall in front of Wilson’s position. One of her troopers hissed through their teeth. Silver ignored them, eyes on the smooth white curves of the car inside the Elevator socket. It was a hundred feet from them, just hanging there on the blue line of the cable.

  As they watched, its lower arm released the cable and swung around towards them, rotating towards the jetway-like passage. It grappled with something underneath the platform, locking into place with a clank that Smoke felt more than heard. The car hung there, suspended, for a long moment and then it pulled itself smoothly towards them, settling with finality against the platform’s edge.

  “Wow,” Carter said to himself. “That was pretty cool.”

  Smoke nodded. “People built this?”

  Wilson shook her head and snorted. “Things like that Spider Chen built it. They built everything, back towards the end. All of this. Went up in a year or two.”

  Silver looked at her. She didn’t speak, just absorbed what Wilson had said. Finally Silver turned to Smoke, and looked at him. She spoke. He saw her mouth move and heard her words, but he couldn’t connect them to meaning. They were noise, washing over him in waves. He heard the waves and saw them and felt them. He could even taste them, like hot salt or cream mixed with spices.

  He blinked, his brain jolting. Alpha. Alpha was with him. He could fe
el her presence filling his mind, faint and tenuous in the waves rippling through his distorted senses, but growing rapidly. Exponentially. A final wave crested over him, sending hot chills down his spine.

  “Smoke,” Alpha said, her voice a smooth contralto. “Stand by for visitors.”

  He almost vomited with relief. Suppressing a gag, he looked up at Silver, who eyed him with concern. “Alpha,” he croaked. He was wet with sweat; he’d broken out into a raging sweat all over his body. “She’s back,” he said. “And she says she’s bringing visitors.”

  Silver swung her rifle up, locking back the bolt. Her stance flowed smoothly into a wide-legged firing position. “Carter,” she snapped, “hit the fucking deck.” Carter hesitated a moment and then sat down heavily on the ground where he was. “Where are they coming, Smoke? I need to know.”

  “Friendlies,” he said, echoing Alpha’s instructions. It was comfortable and familiar to have Alpha speaking through him, like driving a familiar car. Or being a familiar car. His relief washed over him again as he realized how tense he’d been. He pointed towards an open space in between two improvised barricades, about ten paces to their right. “There, right there. Coming through right…now.”

  Three figures appeared. Just blinked into place, where there had been no one. “Don’t shoot!” Silver barked, voice sharp with the snap of command. “These are friendlies!” Troopers exclaimed surprise, those few who saw the three figures appear. Most didn’t notice, Smoke realized, their focus on the gantryway and the newly arrived Elevator capsule.

  “Jessica,” Silver said, wonderingly. “Jesus.”

  It was Jessica, Smoke realized. And Murn, the younger Murn. The Murn they had thrown at him so long ago. A lifetime ago, it seemed. Why? How? And the third figure, erect and aloof, but thin and frail, was clearly Grandmother. She scanned her surroundings, looking like she’d eaten a lemon seed, until her gaze landed on Smoke. She smiled at him.

  “Smoke,” she called. “We do not have much time. He will be coming, and he will bring Guides with him. They have built weapons. He will attempt to stop…” She hesitated, something he had only seen her do rarely. “He will try and stop us. To stop you.”

  Silver approached the three women. She safetied her weapon and looked at the old woman. “You are called Grandmother,” Silver said. “Smoke has spoken of you.” She looked at the others. “Come this way, please.”

  “Silver Samara,” Jessica said. “You owe me more of a welcome than that.” She stomped her foot when she said it.

  Smoke saw Silver smile, and hold out her hand. “You may be right. No, you are right,” she said quickly. “But we’re in a situation here, so you need to follow me and shut your mouth now, OK?” Smoke heard the smile in her voice. “Lots of trigger-happy soldiers here, so let’s just take it down a notch.” She turned back to Grandmother. “How long do we have?”

  “Minutes, maybe hours,” the old woman said. “The time differential is large, and he will take some time to prepare, knowing it favors him.”

  Silver nodded. Footsteps approached from their rear, booted feet pounding up the stairs. It was Warren, coming out of the gloom with an escort of armed troopers.

  “Who the fuck is this?” she barked. She spotted Wilson standing near Silver. “Wilson, report!”

  Wilson stood at attention. “Strangers, Ma’am. They know each other.” She blinked. “They just appeared.” She licked her lips. “She says they’re friendlies. And that there are more incoming.”

  Warren stared at her, then turned to Silver.

  “The ones coming are not friendly,” Silver said. “According to this lady,” she continued, “they’re going to try and stop us.”

  “Stop you from what?” Warren said, eyes tracking from her to Grandmother. “Don’t be rude, Silver. Introduce us.”

  “This is Grandmother,” Silver said. “She has some rank at the Center. This is Jessica Taylor,” she pointed. “She’s from Earth, from our timeframe.” She indicated Murn. “I do not know this young lady, but I think Smoke does.” Smoke saw Murn peering at him intently as if she only vaguely recognized him.

  “They’re from the Center?” Warren asked. “And they just decided to arrive now?”

  Smoke spoke up, channeling Alpha. “Alpha is back as well,” he said. “With me.”

  Warren looked at him, and nodded. “Good,” she said. “Can you contact Chen? Report is that he survived, right? He’s with those damned spiders now.”

  “Maybe,” Alpha said through him. “But you’re about to have a squad of unfriendlies from the Center pop into existence here, and they’ve had at least a few weeks to prepare themselves. Expect energy weapons and lethal drones.”

  Warren scoffed at her. “How the fuck could you know that?” She waved a dismissive hand at Smoke.

  “Because it’s what I would do,” Smoke/Alpha snapped. “And they’re at least as smart as I am. You’ve got a problem on your hands. The Boy and his troops will fight like demons.”

  “Great. Didn’t have enough problems,” Warren muttered, running a hand over her hair. She looked around. At Silver. Grandmother, Jessica, Murn, and back to Smoke. “So, I’m open to suggestions. Anybody got any?”

  “It’s getting worse,” Carter interjected, pointing at the passage to the Elevator capsule doors. They were opening, swinging toward them, bringing a breeze of ionized night air, rich with ozone.

  “Much worse,” Smoke heard himself saying, just as the whoop of the alarm sounded from below. Truck was blatting a siren, enemy sighted. “Chen is here.”

  Chapter Thirty

  Jessica’s memories of the battle at the Elevator station were fragmentary, and always resisted her later attempts to order or clarify them. She recalled the whooping alarm Truck sounded, how it seemed to stab at her ears, so used to the tranquility of the Center. She remembered how the soldiers shouted orders at each other, and at her. She saw Warren, face distorted with anger, yelling for the troops near the tall doors to follow her, and pounding off down the stairs in a rush.

  The small knot of those left had gathered around Silver. She saw Murn approach Smoke and gingerly touch him on the arm. He folded her into an embrace, and she saw tears on Murn’s cheeks. That had made her happy, she recalled, later. Much later. She remembered touching Silver’s arm, only to have Silver give her hand a perfunctory squeeze and turn away, her jaw set in a determined line. She remembered the Elevator, the passage into it. Was that later? It was hard to remember. She forced herself to focus, to bring herself back to that chaotic, cavernous, cacophonous place. To remember it as it was, as she often did, casting herself back there, to that terrible hour.

  “Smoke,” Silver asked. “Where will this Boy arrive? Can you tell?”

  “He will be near us, but not too near. It is hard to say. He will randomize his location, but he is unpredictable. Be ready,” Smoke said, he spoke as he always had, with confidence. She remembered smiling at him.

  “It’s good to see you,” Jessica said to him. “We were worried for so long.”

  He nodded at her, and she saw understanding dawn. “It was a lifetime for you,” he said. “I am sorry.” He nodded at her and Murn. “We will find time to talk, to explain. But not now.”

  Silver looked at him. “We’re still going up, if we can.” She pointed at the door. Nothing had come out, and the capsule was just sitting there. There was sporadic firing below, rifle shots popping. A minigun burst, like ripping paper, repeated three times. Shouts.

  “I cannot reach Chen,” Smoke said to Silver. “His mind is closed to us. He is autonomous now.”

  “Well, so much for that then,” Silver said, looking at him. “We should go.”

  The bearded man, Carter, was on his feet. He held his rifle. “I’m coming with you,” he said to her. “Not staying here.” From below they could hear the rumble of Truck’s tracks, and the whump of an explosion. There was a sustained barrage. Jessica could smell smoke, cordite. She knew it from long ago, from places where s
oldiers fired guns at each other. It had been a lifetime since she’d smelled it herself.

  Jessica looked at Smoke. “I will come,” she said. “You promised me a story, once. Both of you did. I mean to have it.” She held up a hand at her protests. “Let’s go.”

  “Murn will stay with me,” Grandmother told them. “I will protect her. I am not without resources.”

  Smoke hesitated, but then nodded, releasing Murn. He pressed his forehead to hers. “You are to stay here,” he told her. “And perhaps we will speak more later.”

  She nodded, her blonde hair falling over her face. Young again, Jessica marveled at Murn’s transformation. It must have been a great shock to the old woman she had lived with this past decade, to suddenly be young, and here. Confusion.

  Grandmother spoke to Smoke. “She is not your Murnaballa, Tarl. She is a copy, as close as we could manage. A honey trap of my design, once. I have regrets about this.”

  “I know who she is,” Smoke said, looking at her. “Perhaps later we will share our regrets. Not now.”

  “We should go,” Carter said. The firing was more frequent now. He looked about them, fearfully. “I mean it,” he said. “They could be all around us.”

  “Let’s go then,” Silver said, hoisting her rifle. “Smoke, Jessica, to the front. Carter, to my right. Stay to my right, got it?” He nodded, and shouldered his own rifle, sighting down it.

  They began to walk, then, towards the large doors that had opened when the capsule arrived. Jessica walked next to Smoke, not touching him, marveling at the place. She saw seating areas like an airport terminal, and there were the same sorts of recessed shops. She saw a bookstore to her right in the distance, recognizing the brand from airports back home. It made her heart ache, seeing that sign. This place was massive, and confusing, wrecked by time and weather, but still a place where people had lived. People like her. Like all of us, she thought. Time’s passage damaged them all.

  “Contact,” Carter said evenly. “There are spiders here, behind us.”