The day before they’d determined that the Builders’ ship would arrive imminently, and after some difficult math and a clever bit of programming by Natalie, pinpointed where they thought it would settle into geosynchronous orbit.
Tania had worked late, long after a droopy-eyed Natalie had retired. She’d tapped into an old Platz-owned mapping satellite, overridden its routine task, and directed it to the opposite side of the planet. Borrowing some pattern recognition code from one of Natalie’s brilliant scripts, Tania had instructed it to watch for the new shell ship and relay a video feed back to her.
The image brought a smile to her face. “Nat,” she whispered. “We were right. We did it …”
A shell ship like the first, perched high above the Earth. Tania squinted, and covered he mouth to stifle a gratified laugh.
At the tip of the shell ship, sunlight glinted off the thin thread of an Elevator cord.
Another space elevator, Tania thought. A new one. A fresh start. She saw no sign of the other, smaller objects, but that was a problem for another day. Clearly they’d sent no invasion fleet, no doomsday device.
She realized tears were streaming down her face.
“Come see, Nat!” Tania shouted.
Her assistant had been gone too long. Scouting the hall, maybe. Or—
“Hello, Miss Sharma,” a man said, behind her. “Come see what?”
She didn’t recognize the voice. It meant trouble, that much she knew. Tania’s precautions for working in secret paid off as she tapped a single function key. A script she’d created immediately blanked the screens and began to encrypt and hide all the data.
“Oh,” the man said, “you shouldn’t have done that. Step away from there.”
Tania turned to face him and took a step to her right. “It was just a simulation,” she tried.
The man had a gun pointed at her and held Natalie by her elbow. Nat’s eyes were firmly on the now-blank screens. She’d seen the image; she knew what the Builders had sent.
A half dozen other people in the room all wore black uniforms and carried weapons.
“Who are you?” Tania asked. “What do you want here?”
He walked casually to stand in front of her, and she tried to muster a defiant glare. “I’m told you’re in charge here,” he said.
Tania’s nostrils flared. She kept her jaw firm, said nothing.
“I was just about to get on the intercom,” the man said, “and invite you down. Thanks for saving me the wait.”
“What do you want?”
He ignored the question and shifted his attention to Natalie. “Who are you, sweetheart?”
“Natalie Ammon.”
“Ah yes,” he said, “Alex sends his regards.”
“Tell that pig to piss off,” Natalie replied.
“What—” Tania started. She stopped herself, realizing who stood in front of her. Russell Blackfield. Tania had not met him during her detention in Nightcliff, but she had no doubt he had either ordered or knowingly allowed her treatment there.
Natalie’s comment flustered him for the briefest of seconds. “I’ll relay your message,” he said, rather lamely to Tania’s ear.
“Leave her out of this,” Tania said. “What do you want from me?”
He maintained eye contact with Natalie for a moment, sizing her up, then turned his focus on Tania.
“Two things,” Russell said. “First, I’d like you to get on that intercom and tell the station that I am now in control. Your laughable security ‘force’ has been relieved.”
Tania swallowed. “And second?”
Russell smiled. “You’re going to tell me all about the research you’ve been doing for Platz. I hear it’s fascinating.”
Chapter Forty
Platz Station
12.FEB.2283
Neil took a deep breath.
On the monitor in front of him, a sea of hostile soldiers rushed through the elegant hallways of Platz Station, his home.
Time would soon run out.
His gaze flicked yet again to the console at his left. Tania had not reported in, or responded to calls, for hours. The screen remained idle.
“Bloody hell,” he said to no one.
A decision must be made. Never in his adult life had he struggled so hard to make one.
The soldiers were close now, past the halfway mark, cutting through closed airlock doors with reckless abandon.
If only he had more time. If only she’d called in. Silently he mouthed a prayer, hoping her control of Anchor Station remained steadfast.
Zane appeared at the door, impatience plain in his expression. “Everyone’s waiting,” he said. “There’s no more time.”
Neil weighed his options as Zane strolled over and stood behind him, leaning in to study the security feeds. Gateway soldiers swarmed through the evacuated hallways on levels three and four.
“They’re nearly here, Neil,” Zane said, somehow calm. Always so steady. “I don’t know why you’re waiting, the station is lost …”
Neil Platz pushed himself to his feet. He’d done everything he could, made all the preparations right down to the last detail. He’d given all the orders, provided all the plans.
Except one. The most important one.
Tania still needed a critical set of codes. Codes that Neil could not risk falling into Alex Warthen’s hands. Or anyone else’s, for that matter. If something had gone wrong on Anchor, their full plan compromised …
Better not to risk it. In a few hours he and his staff would arrive at Hab-8, and he could try to reach Tania again from there.
“All right. Let’s go,” he said.
He let Zane lead the way, watching him practically jog toward the lift. Neil allowed himself to fall behind, to walk alone through the grand hallway that led from his office all the way to the main lift on the opposite side of the ring. He soaked in the design of it, all built to his specifications. Carpet of rich burgundy contrasted by walls the color of sand.
The station, almost seventeen years old now, had become as comfortable as his old estate in Nightcliff. More so, perhaps, though he did miss the smell of salty air. The breeze, the pounding rains that cleansed everything. Days long gone.
A vision came to him, unbidden. The elder Dr. Sharma, Prathima, sitting on the sun deck between Neil and Sandeep, bouncing baby Tania on her knees. They all chuckled at the infant’s delight.
Prathima. A striking woman, only to be eclipsed by her daughter. She’d gone to her early grave never knowing that her husband had died, or how. Better that way.
And little Tania. Her mop of black hair standing straight up, ever curious, eyes bright and wide even then. Laughing with a mixture of fear and delight as her mother bounced her ever higher, Neil and Sandeep egging her on.
Neil smiled to himself. He felt tears begin to well.
“Zane,” he called out. His brother had disappeared beyond the curve of the hall. “Go on ahead, start the launch procedure.”
He heard his brother’s voice, distant. “What?”
“I forgot something,” Neil called out. “Won’t be a moment—”
A jet of steam rushed through a pair of doors ten meters ahead. The hot air screamed so loud Neil could barely hear the cutting torch underneath.
Too late, he thought. I waited too long.
Neil spun around and bolted toward his office. The sounds of booted feet filled the space behind him. Someone shouted. Zane? No time to find out.
He burst through the heavy oak door of his office, beating a path straight to his desk.
More shouts from outside, close. He needed time.
He moved back to the door and chanced a look into the hallway beyond. Four black-clad soldiers moved cautiously toward him, visible from foot to waist as they approached along the curved floor. Soon he saw their guns, sweeping every vantage point. He found himself transfixed, the almost alien feeling of fear gripping him.
One of the guards aimed, and Neil ducked back into the room at the same moment, sensing the action. The bullet hissed past his head, burying itself with a low thud in the back wall of the office.
Neil took a chance and rolled across the open doorway. The soldiers reacted too slowly, spraying gunfire after he crossed the opening. Bullets smacked into the floor, walls, and ceiling, filling the air with dust and chunks of debris. Neil grabbed the door and threw it shut.
He moved to lock it, a mistake. As he reached across and grasped the handle, another barrage tore through the thin door, poking dozens of holes in a random pattern across the surface. Two bullets ripped through his arm, leaving similar holes in his coat sleeve. Blood welled at the edges.
Neil shouted through clenched teeth and just managed to lock the door before collapsing against the wall. He tried to put pressure on the wound, only to advance his torment to a whole new level. His entire left arm felt on fire.
More bullets punched holes in the door, or thudded into the thicker wall, failing to puncture it but making no less of a racket.
The console. It’s all that matters now, you fool!
Neil heard his own voice as if it were one of his teachers, shouting at him for some flub in school. The phantom voice managed to break through the pain that clouded his mind. He pushed himself to his feet, gritting his teeth every time his left arm moved. Blood soaked through his shirtsleeve and coat now, pooling on the floor below him. He ignored it. The console.
He could hear boots beyond the door—a lot of them. “Bring enough troops to take down an old man, Warthen?” he shouted, forcing his legs to carry him back to the safe. It seemed so far.
The response came swiftly. “We didn’t start this, Mr. Platz, and you know it.”
Not Warthen’s voice. Neil laughed aloud. “What, Alex couldn’t make it? Sent you to do his dirty work, is that it?”
“You can end this now, Neil. Give up.”
“What’s your name, son?”
A pause. “Jarred Larsen.”
Neil reached the console and used his one good hand to type in his passphrase. The screen came alive.
“All right,” Neil said in a raised voice, “I’m coming out. Hold your fire.”
Forced to use just one arm, Neil accessed the information he’d been waiting to share with Tania. He selected the data and pushed it into a terse message, addressed it to her.
Then he opened a new message. He addressed it to Zane. Subject: “If I die.”
“Platz?” Jarred shouted from the other side of the door. “You’ve got three seconds, then we’re coming in.”
Grunting through pain, Neil began to tap out a confession.
“You know what, Larsen?” Neil shouted. “Go fuck yourself. Anyone who enters this room is a dead man.” The empty threat, he hoped, would buy a few extra seconds. He typed as rapidly as one hand would allow. A peace settled over him as he put into words the secret he’d carried for so long. He could only hope Zane would make sense of the cryptic words.
The door kicked in and a soldier dressed in black stormed inside.
Neil kept typing, his burden falling away with each letter, and the soldier reacted as he was trained: He aimed and fired.
In the same instant Neil tapped “send,” the bullet entered his brain through the center of his forehead. He dropped to his knees and fell over on his side, aware but strangely at peace.
He saw their black boots sideways before they started to blur. And blur, and blur, and blur into a void …
Chapter Forty-one
Darwin, Australia
13.FEB.2283
Dazed and numb, Skyler trudged up the silo stairs.
The memory of what had happened below already faded, and he let it. The bizarre sensations of his mind being flayed wide open, the machine pushing him back out while keeping the subhuman … none of it made sense. He wondered if his immunity somehow confused the device, like it had no taste for his kind.
He’d sat down there in the stark silence, looking at the black iris and its alien patterns, assuming the subhuman would reappear, too. Wondering “why not” when it didn’t. He’d even drifted off for a time. A few hours, he guessed, but he had no way to be sure as his watch had stopped working.
He realized he didn’t really care.
The errand Platz had given him seemed comical, in hindsight. He grinned at the idea of explaining to Platz what he’d seen.
Yes, I made it there. Yes, it sounded like a failing jet engine when I arrived, and dead silent when I left. I may have destroyed what I meant to fix, and doomed all of you. But at least I got an alien mind-fuck out of the deal.
Sorry, mate. Next time?
Destroyed the Aura. The possibility made him stop, mid-step. He looked up and tried to imagine a million subhumans waiting for him. Ready to tear him to pieces for dooming them all.
Who could blame them. Skyler took another tired step, then another.
Sunlight baked the damp grounds of Nightcliff, and a stiff warm breeze came in off the ocean, carrying with it the smell of salt.
Forced to squint in the brightness, Skyler shielded his eyes with one hand and stepped through the same hole he’d created when entering the mansion.
To the south lay Kantro’s plane, still embedded in the side of a low building near the landing pads. The bird listed to one side, and part of one wing lay on the tarmac, bent beyond repair. A crowd of people tugged thick chains over the fuselage, while an old tractor idled nearby, ready to try to yank the wounded aircraft free.
Skyler took in the rest of the scene; the landing pads, the climber port, and the Elevator beyond. No signs remained of the subhuman attack, and for a fleeting instant Skyler thought perhaps he’d been inside the silo for days, not hours.
But a man mopping up blood dispelled that theory. He sloshed water from an old janitor’s bucket onto a red splotch on the ground, and scraped at it with a thick-bristle push broom.
