“It might, sir.”
“And stop calling me sir.”
“Yes, Mr. McGonigal.”
Four big boxy troop transports waited on the other side of a stand of trees, along with a smaller staff car, which could seat eight or ten people. Four bots similar to the one that had revealed Toby stood next to it. The officer stepped up to them and said to Toby, “In, please.”
Reluctantly, Toby complied. He couldn’t help himself and spared a glance back at the lot where he’d left Corva and Orpheus. All was dark there, just a confusion of moving shapes as the people from the tower belatedly realized they’d been set free.
The bot that had accompanied the officer moved to step into the aircar, but the man put his hand on its chest. “Wait here a second,” he told it. Then he slid past it and into the car.
“Sir, I—” the bot began, moving forward.
The officer reached up and yanked down the aircar’s clamshell door, banging the bot on the head and knocking it aside.
“Lift! Lift!” He practically screamed the word as he slammed into the seat next to Toby. The aircar surged upward, but the officer was already reaching for the manual override. As he took control they slewed sideways and then dropped. Toby was suddenly weightless, and he shouted as he braced his hands on the canopy. Black cutout shapes of trees shot past, and suddenly the sky was full of laser light.
Some part of Toby’s mind was registering that real laser shots didn’t look anything like those in the movies and games he’d seen—they were diffuse, tremulous, and wavering, full of sparkles as the beams exploded stray motes of dust. But the canopy of the tree next to them erupted in orange flame as one caught it, and then they were clear—
—For just a second before something slammed into the canopy, making Toby shout again. They took another hit, then another and a quick fusilade: bangbang bang!—with the last one cracking the windshield.
“Damned drones,” muttered the officer as he steered the aircar around the apartment building. Toby glanced back in time to see a sumptuous living room explode in fire as more laser shots tried to cut through the building.
“Don’t worry, they’re not trying to kill us.”
Toby reared back, staring at the man. “How can you tell?”
“If they were, we’d already be dead. But if they think they’re actually going to lose us, they might get serious.” He dove at the ground and, scant meters above the road surface, they dodged through the streets. Everywhere around them, vehicles and drones were rising into the sky. There were more laser flashes, only … “Hey, they’re shooting at each other!”
“Some of us are loyal,” said the officer. “Some would die for your sister even after learning how she’s betrayed you.”
“Ah.” A tumble of emotions flew through Toby then: fury that this man had been an ally all along, despair that Orpheus had been hurt or killed for no reason; relief that Corva was out of danger and, over it all, a savage sense of triumph at the carnage playing out across the cityscape. Bots were fighting bots, aircars and drones weaving around one another while people ran to and fro in the streets. Divided loyalty was shattering Evayne’s ranks, just as Toby had planned.
All his good intentions had evaporated but he didn’t care anymore if people got hurt. He laughed bitterly. The officer glanced over and something in Toby’s eye made him say, “I’m so sorry if—”
“Carry on,” snapped Toby. “This is perfect.”
THEY SHOT BETWEEN TREES that passed so close the branches whipped the side windows. Yellow blossoms of fire erupted behind them and Toby’s stomach flipped over repeatedly as they maneuvered.
It’s nothing you haven’t seen in Consensus, he told himself—or tried: none of the virtual battles he’d fought with Peter had included actual g-forces and vertigo. He gritted his teeth and tried to remember what a commander was supposed to do in situations like this.
“Where are we going?” He was glad his voice wasn’t quavering or squeaking. The officer grunted but had to pull some extreme banks and turns before he answered.
“We’ve been in contact with your people for years,” he said as they entered a slot between tall towers, and he opened the throttle. “Almost since we arrived.”
“My people? What are you talking about?”
“Your army,” said the officer. “The one we’ll be taking to Destrier.”
Toby slumped back in the seat, shaking his head. The cult of the Emperor of Time would surely have their own denners and non-McGonigal beds. Just like the Thisbe defense forces, they could skip a certain number of people through time on their own frequency. Toby hadn’t known how many of the recent firefights and ambushes had been engineered by the defense force and how many had been Halen’s cult; he hadn’t really cared. The one possibility he hadn’t considered was that some of Evayne’s own people would be highly motivated to find out.
“How many of you are there?”
The percussive sounds of battle were fading behind them. The officer sat back, too, grinning now. “We’ve had to be very careful about recruiting. Our core is over a hundred men, but at least half of the soldiers may take their orders from your sister, only because they think she’s acting on your behalf. They’ve been spinning their heads around trying to reconcile the Great Lady’s actions with that loyalty. If you’d declared yourself before, you could have had sixty-five ships and almost five thousand men at your command … instantly. When you do declare yourself, I’m sure most of the others will come around.”
“Declare myself?”
“Announce your true identity and your intention to march on Destrier.”
“Oh that,” said Toby.
“Everything’s going to change after tonight,” the officer went on excitedly. “Her forces will crumble away; they’ll all defect! Then we’ll have her and you can fulfill your purpose.”
Toby decided not to ask the officer what he thought Toby’s “purpose” was.
“What about my brother? Isn’t this just part of the lockstep army?”
The officer shrugged. “They’ll try to defend Destrier. I mean, the total lockstep army is seven million men and women, and hundreds of thousands of ships; nobody knows how many bots there are. But the same thing is going to happen then as is happening now. They’ll come around.”
But not without a fight. Toby’s angry satisfaction was draining away, replaced by dread. This is Halen’s plan. Just as surely as he knew that, he knew it had been M’boto and Ammond’s plan as well—with the tiny difference that they had intended to be the puppeteers pulling Toby’s strings.
Of course, you didn’t need to neuroshackle somebody to make him your puppet. All you needed was to know that person’s currency. To have leverage over him …
Corva. He’d left her behind—and where would she go now? Back to her family.
“Crap.” He twisted in his seat to look back. The city appeared absurdly festive, but the fireworks were going off strangely close to ground level. There was no returning there, at least not tonight. “Crap crap crap.”
“Sir? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Stay on course. I need to think.”
It was all unraveling. He didn’t know how many of Evayne’s human forces were awake, but she could concentrate all her bots here while they awoke. For his part, Toby would have to depend on whoever on his side was awake at the moment—and it sounded like it was the cultists. He could start thawing the rest of the defense force, but it would take more than a day for them to become operational. By that time everything would probably have been decided, one way or the other. It didn’t seem like he had much choice.