“We’re rumbled. Kill everything you see and don’t stop killing until we’ve won.”
The Operative hits his suit’s thrusters.
T he inner sanctum of the Kanheri Temple of Great Peace is vacant save for an altar. The banners hung from the ceiling have been torn by the blast that’s just rocked the chamber.
“Where the fuck is it?” yells Marlowe. He’s got his guns out.
“I don’t fucking know,” screams Haskell. She opens up on the altar, destroys it in a barrage of explosive rounds. In the zone she catches a glimpse of some presence receding.
“It’s running,” she says.
“Then so are we.”
They start to race down the corridor. They leap bodies, sprint around corners. They charge through what’s left of the temple. Even now they don’t lose their formation. They’re on guard against the oldest gambit of them all—when the hunted doubles back on hunter. So Marlowe leads and Haskell covers him, covers the zone too. She can see nothing at all. But she knows full well that something’s there. Something that’s gone lights out and hell for leather. Something that couldn’t be that far ahead of them…
“We’re out of the temple now,” says Marlowe.
“Some kind of back entrance,” confirms Haskell.
One that’s sloping down. They’re dropping well below the level of the Seleucus Flats now.
“Are you sure this is the way it went?” asks Marlowe.
“It’s right ahead of us,” she says.
She can’t see it on the zone. But she knows it’s right there. She fires on long-range. Tracers streak past Marlowe, explode in the depths of the tunnel. The walls around them shake.
“Easy,” says Marlowe.
“Goddamn it,” mutters Haskell.
She keeps expecting to stumble upon its smoking wreckage, keeps waiting for it to leap from the very rock around them. But it’s not going out easy. She knows it’s got special powers. But as to how those manifest in tactical combat situations, she can only guess. She detects a heat signature farther down the tunnel. It’s moving away quickly.
“Thrusters,” says Haskell.
“Must be,” replies Marlowe.
They ignite their own, give chase. If they’re heading into a trap, they could be in a precarious position. But they’ve got no choice. They’re ready for anything. But nothing moves save the shadows cast by their own flames. The heat signature in front of them is very faint. As is the zone presence. They’re pursuing it as fast as they dare.
“Where the fuck are we?” says Marlowe.
“Well below the Flats now,” she replies.
Somewhere in the depths of the rest of city. And now that city’s all around her, writhing amidst the distortions of its zone: reports of what’s going on in Seleucus mixed in with plagues now loose in the central sectors shot through with fevered rants about Armageddon and impending war and how the last days are now upon us. She catches glimpses of nightclubs where the youth of HK dance themselves into an oblivion thrust upon them far too early. She sees mobs in full riot—watches as explosions blast across them, drop them in their tracks. She overloads herself on all those images. She keeps rushing deeper, keeps urging Marlowe forward.
Finally the route they’re traversing starts taking them beyond the city’s confines. The city’s sounds are starting to fade on all their screens. They’re approaching sea level and still they’ve seen no other way out of this tunnel.
“Some escape route,” says Marlowe.
“I’m not sure what I’d call this,” replies Haskell.
They’re accelerating. By Haskell’s reckoning they’re out beyond the coastline now. Ocean lies above them. They keep on questing forward, leaving the shore behind.
But they turn off their thrusters when a door comes into sight. They move carefully toward it. As Marlowe presses up against one side, Haskell covers him. Marlowe pivots, opens the door.
“Interesting,” he says.
They’re looking at a corridor that’s filled with equipment: ladders, metal pipes. As they move into the corridor, they notice that the door through which they’ve come is invisible from this side. They hear a rumbling somewhere up ahead.
“The geothermals,” says Haskell.
“Must be,” breathes Marlowe.
They creep into the infrastructure that harnesses the product of the friction of the fault lines off New Guinea. They’re proceeding very carefully now. Any heat would just get lost in the shuffle down here. What they’re looking for could be anywhere.
But Haskell picks it up on the zone all the same. It’s moving in toward the farside of the complex. If it had any sense, it would have severed all access with the zone altogether at some point during the pursuit. Unless it’s arrogant enough to believe it can’t be tracked. Or it’s sowing a false trail. Or…
“It wants us to follow,” she says.
“You hadn’t figured that out yet.”
“What choice do we have?”
“What choice indeed?”
“It’s speeding up.”
It’s moving out beyond the complex. She has no idea where it’s going, but can see quite clearly that it’s picking up the pace. And now she and Marlowe are doing the same—racing through the machinery that’s busy feeding power to all the chaos now raging far behind. The place isn’t small. It takes them almost ten minutes to get to the farside—and another five minutes to find the hole in the back of the disused chamber that leads…
“Due north,” says Haskell. “Straight out to sea.”
“Let’s do it,” says Marlowe.
They proceed down the new tunnel, firing their thrusters intermittently. But mostly they’re just walking now. The tunnel around them is starting to change. Metal replaces stone. Plastic replaces metal. They transition into a corridor once more.
Only this one’s different. It’s much more cramped. They can hear the hum of a power source around them. And soon they can discern insignias on the walls and ceiling.
“Do you recognize those?” asks Haskell.
“Indian military,” replies Marlowe.
“Indian?”
“Why not? They used to own this.”
Back when India mattered. Back before the Coalition crushed her. Long time gone now—even though she used to have such reach. Several kilometers off the coast of New Guinea: that’s where one of her limbs got severed. That’s where one lies forgotten.
“What are we in?” mutters Haskell.
“Legacy,” replies Marlowe. “The Indian Republic maintained mobile underwater fortresses. Like any naval power. Apparently one got buried off the coast of New Guinea. And here we are.”
“And here’s where the Manilishi’s waiting for us,” says Haskell.
“Along with its masters,” he replies.
She nods. They keep moving.
T he stairs end in a tunnel. They start making haste along it, moving due south now. They advance through into what looks to be a natural cave, transition back into another tunnel. Their lights play along the walls, ceiling.
“This should take us beyond the border,” says Spencer.
“This being what?”
“These are smugglers’ tunnels.”
“Yeah? Smuggling what?”
“Mostly drugs. But sometimes humans.”
“And you hooked up with these guys how?”
“Bit of a six degrees of separation thing,” says Spencer.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. The border’s honeycombed with this shit. Some of it was dug during the wars across the last thirty years. Some of it’s much older. Some of it was here all along.”
“And the Americans don’t know about this?”
“They know that this kind of stuff goes on, sure. Tunnels under borders aren’t exactly new. But they haven’t found them all. They’re concentrating on the ones they’ve linked to Jaguar activity. As for the others: a little bit of merchandise, a little bit of traffic—who cares? Border units don’t exactly command top-drawer salaries. Sometimes everybody can win.”