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  The Machinery of Light

  ( Autumn Rain - 3 )

  David J Williams

  With The Machinery of Light, David J. Williams completes his furiously paced, stunningly imagined trilogy - a work of vision, beauty, and pulse-pounding futuristic action.

  September 26, 2110. 10:22 GMT. Following the assassination of the American president, the generals who have seized power initiate World War Three, launching a surprise attack against the Eurasian Coalition's forces throughout the Earth-Moon system. Across the orbits, tens of thousands of particle beams and lasers blast away at one another. The goal: crush the other side's weaponry, paving the way for nuclear bombardment of the cities.

  As inferno becomes Armageddon, the rogue commando unit Autumn Rain embarks on one last run. Matthew Sinclair, an imprisoned spymaster, plots his escape. And his former protégé Claire Haskell, capable of hacking into both nets and minds, is realizing that all her powers may merely be playing into Sinclair's plans. For even as Claire evades the soldiers of East and West amid carnage in the lunar tunnels, the surviving members of the Rain converge upon the Moon, one step ahead of the Eurasian fleets but one step behind the mastermind who created Autumn Rain - and his terrible final secret.

  David J Williams

  The Machinery of Light

  To the Muses For carrying me through

  The Earth-Moon System on the Eve of World War Three

  SKETCHES OF THE AFTER

  How then to do justice to such sketches? Start by saying that they were imperfect representations of imperfect things. They were flesh that wants to live reduced to ink or keystrokes—or just to memory ground beneath the mill of time. Yet those images, they might survive that flesh … that memory may yet evade the oblivion of eons, become instead the foundation for the tales that flow from old to young to ancient in endless migration across the chains of generation all the way to when the arks of the third planet scatter before the ravaging sun, when the descendants of apes watch the very concept of the years melt in flame behind them. Phrase the words just so, write them just right, and maybe they’ll make it that far. Maybe they’ll do justice to what really went down: the two twenty-second-century superpowers that watched each other across endless steppes and ocean—that feared and hated each other, that built arsenals that spanned the globe and more, looking down upon our planet from on high in space. Space. For even as the radio signals from the first Cold War echoed on the fringes of the Milky Way and sped toward the galaxy’s heart—even as the transmissions from Sputnik and Soyuz raced out into the endless parsecs to join forever with those of Gemini and Apollo … the spark of conflict that set those vessels in motion flared anew in an hour when our race’s promise and our race’s tragedy surged together in a collision that shattered across the shards of time, leaving in its wake only this poor substitute for the real thing, babbled by a madman long gone on the sheerest midnight, riding astride that which might comprise the story of Autumn Rain, tales of pandemonium and glory, sketches of the after to end all others, liquid words flung down from the sky, absorbing all tears, frozen in the ground for all of winter, yet pregnant with the possibility of coming forth one day someday into eternal spring …

  INFOCOM INTELLIGENCE 22:05 GMT 10.01.2110 FROM: CONTROL TO: ALL SENIOR HANDLERS CC: PRESIDENT STEPHANIE MONTROSE FLASH PRIORITY FLASH PRIORITY FLASH PRIORITY > PRESIDENT HARRISON IS DEAD > PRESIDENT MONTROSE HAS ASSUMED COMMAND OF ALL U.S. FORCES > PREEMPTIVE STRIKE AGAINST EURASIAN COALITION UNDERWAY

  TEXT AS FOLLOWS:

  While we have every confidence that the integrity of our zone/net infrastructure will be maintained intact during the destruction of the Coalition’s military capability, each of you must be prepared to operate in isolation should the eventuality arise. It is therefore necessary to familiarize you with the overall contours of our calculations. Three factors are paramount.

  1. The Eurasian Coalition: We anticipate that our DE/KE strikes will combine with our superior zone capabilities to deliver rapid and overwhelming advantage against the East. Establishing control of the Moon early will be critical, along with all libration points. In addition, the Coalition itself is just that: a coalition, and this can be turned to our advantage, as substantial fault lines exist between the Russian and Chinese nets, along with much mutual suspicion.

  2. SpaceCom: The partnership between InfoCom and SpaceCom has been instrumental in Montrose’s securing of the presidency/the zone’s executive node. That said, we must regard this alliance as temporary at best. All SpaceCom agents within your respective purviews should be monitored in anticipation of eventual termination; orders for this could come at any time, possibly before the cessation of combat with the Eurasians.

  3. Autumn Rain: As of a few hours ago, the core of this commando group was intact; while their individual situations vary (see attached ANNEX), all should be regarded as highly dangerous. They should be used if possible, but ultimately they must be disposed of. Information on any member of the Rain should immediately be reported to me, pursuant to further instructions. The Rain’s spymaster/creator, Matthew Sinclair, remains imprisoned at L5, and our agents are currently taking custody of him. However, it is believed that various documents of Sinclair’s remain at large; regaining such files is a task of utmost urgency.

  ANNEX: KEY RAIN AGENTS/ASSETS RAIN TRIAD (PROTOTYPE):

  Carson, Strom (RAZOR-MECH): Now working directly for President Montrose and responsible for recovering the rogue supercomputer Manilishi, which has escaped into the Congreve sub-basements beneath the lunar farside. Members of Montrose’s own bodyguard corps are accompanying Carson, and if necessary will ensure his liquidation subsequent to the Manilishi’s recapture. (It should be noted that Carson was one of the Manilishi’s trainers ten years ago, and as such, undoubtedly maintains considerable emotional sway over her.)

  Sarmax, Leo (MECH): Partnered with InfoCom razor Lyle Spencer to terminate fugitive U.S. handler Alek Jarvin and then investigate a Eurasian black-ops base beneath the Himalayas. Nothing has been heard from either Sarmax or Spencer since crossing into Eurasian territory some hours ago. Though Carson is the ostensible “leader” of the Carson-Sarmax-Lynx triad, Sarmax held that role in the years after the unit’s initial formulation (SEE FILE LG-340038AZ), when all three men held senior ranks in Praetorian intelligence. Sarmax retired soon after the non-prototype triads went rogue, when his lover—Rain agent Indigo Velasquez—joined the rebel Rain units. (We have reports that Velasquez was executed by Sarmax himself, which might explain the isolation/retirement from which he has only now emerged.)

  Lynx, Stefan (RAZOR): Led ex-SpaceCom mech Seb Linehan in an attempted assassination run on SpaceCom commander Jharek Szilard at the orders of the now-deceased President Harrison. Since Szilard remains alive, Lynx and Linehan must be presumed dead. The SpaceCom flagship Montana is still in lockdown, and no further reports have been received. Whether Szilard is still using that ship as his actual base remains unclear, and we are working to ascertain his exact location.

  RAIN TRIADS (NON-PROTOTYPE):

  Subsequent to the surgically altered prototype triad, at least ten more triads were developed via genetic acceleration. A significant portion of the Rain perished during their attempted insurrection. The remainder went underground and only recently resurfaced, destroying the Phoenix Elevator and setting in motion the current crisis. It is believed that all remaining members of all remaining triads are now deceased, subsequent to their defeat at the Europa Platform (SEE FILE LG-340489AZ), but we have yet to confirm this.

  MANILISHI:

  Haskell, Claire (RAZOR): Supercomputer/cyborg capable of running superluminal hacks (SEE FILE LG-340527AZ). Haskell was originally handled/run by Sinclai
r’s handler Morat, and maintained a romantic liaison with Rain agent Jason Marlowe. Both Morat and Marlowe are believed to be deceased at the hands of Haskell herself, and this history could be exploited when we take custody of the Manilishi. Acquiring control of her is our top priority.

  MESSAGE TERMINATES MESSAGE TERMINATES MESSAGE TERMINATES

  PART I INCANDESCE

  A woman listens to the world burn.

  It’s hard to miss. It’s on every channel. Reports rendered in toneless staccato, attack sequences confirmed by unseen machines, horrified civilian newscasts that suddenly go silent … the woman’s jaw hangs loose while her mind surfs the signals reaching the room in which she’s riding out the storm, as far away from this craft’s hull as possible. Vibrations pound through the walls as energy smashes into the ship from the vacuum beyond. The woman hears shouts as the soldiers in the corridors around her react to the blast-barriers starting to slide shut. She hears the muffled boom of each one closing, growing ever closer, the succession of walls parading past her and echoing in the distance.

  She’s locked into one of the modular sections now, along with ten other guards—and the prisoner in the high-security cell they’re guarding. She looks just like the rest of those sentinels, though really she’s nothing of the kind. She’s not sealed in either; she may be confined behind these doors, but she’s still in touch on zone, her razor awareness reaching out to the rest of the ship. Nearly half a klick long, the Lincoln sits at the heart of the L5 fleet’s defenses, on the libration point itself. The whole fleet turns around it. Beyond that is a sight like nothing ever seen …

  World War Three began ten seconds ago, with a sudden U.S. attack on the Eurasian Coalition’s forces across the Earth-Moon system. A cacophony of light hit the East—and within a second the East hit back with everything it had left. A myriad of guns keep on flaring like there’s no tomorrow. For many millions, there won’t be. The war to end all wars is underway in style. Way behind the speed-of-light weapons come the kinetics: hundreds of thousands of hypersonic missiles, projectiles, railgun-flung rocks—all of it swimming through space and streaking through atmosphere. And right now most of it’s way too slow in the face of massed particle beams and lasers: directed-energy batteries that flail against incoming targets even as they triangulate on one another. On the screens, the woman can see the Earth glowing as portions of the outer atmosphere reach temperatures they really shouldn’t. Chunks are coming off the Moon’s surface. The room in which she’s sitting starts to shake even harder. She hears one of the guards praying—his words audible only inside his helmet, but she’s hacked into that helmet, getting off on every fucking word—and every word is just one among so many … because now she’s honing in on Earth, sifting through the traffic that’s getting through the swathe of energy that’s bathing the planet. It’s so bad she has to take one of the mainline routes in; riding on the command frequencies, she plunges through air that’s shimmering with heat, drops deep beneath the Rocky Mountains and into the command bunker within which America’s planetside generals are monitoring events.

  Those generals are exclusively InfoCom and SpaceCom. All the other ranking officers have been purged, or have sworn to obey the new order. The death of the president has been announced to the armed forces, along with the order to take revenge upon the Eurasian foe whose assassins struck him down in his hour of triumph. There’s a new president now, and everyone’s getting in line fast. They’re too busy dealing with the blizzard of death blazing through the sky to do anything else. But so far the cities in both East and West are being left untargeted. Neither side can afford to bother with them. Both sides are bringing every resource they can to bear upon the challenge of breaking down the def-grids of the other, def-grids largely consisting of DE cannon arrayed in strategic perimeters, shooting at the waves of projectiles heading in toward them. It looks to be the mother of all free-for-alls.

  It’s anything but. The woman can detect an initial pattern already. The American preemptive strike has drawn blood. The Eurasians are reeling. She’s studying the planetside portion of the Eurasian zone now, watching the webwork of nodes that stretch from Romania to Vladivostok, from the wastes of Siberia to the Indian Ocean. She takes in the Eastern def-grids as they struggle to adjust to the onslaught. She’s looking for an opening, following the routes she’s been instructed to take. Moving beneath the American firewall and through a back door into the neutral territories—into a data warehouse in London, from there to Finland and across the Arctic Circle and through long-lost phone lines beneath the tundra, straight into the Eastern zone … straight into Russia. She’s never worked the zone like this before. She’s running codes that make her virtually unstoppable, swooping in across the steppes, closing upon a target.

  The target’s a man. He’s sitting in the sixth car of a Russian train, several hundred klicks east of the Caspian Sea, going at several thousand klicks an hour: full-out supersonic maglev, heading southeast. The train just went below the surface, and there’s palpable relief aboard at getting underground before the rail got pulverized. It looks to be a normal transit train—the last ten cars of the train are packed with equipment, the first ten cars with specialists and staff officers, bound for various bases and various locales. There’s nothing aboard that’s even remotely atypical.

  Except for the man the woman’s tracking.

  He’s one of the staff officers, sitting in a compartment all his own, staring at the wall that’s rushing past the window. She can see him quite clearly on the train’s vid, but somehow she can’t seem to get near him on zone. His codes are too good. She can trace the route they’ve taken, though. Doesn’t surprise her in the slightest that he’s come from the very center of Moscow, from cellars deep beneath the Kremlin itself.

  And yet he’s undercover. No one else aboard this train has the slightest clue he’s anything but what his ID says he is: a medium-range gunnery officer, attached to somebody’s staff in Burma. But the woman has been told this man is key—has been told she has to watch him closely. She expects she’ll find out what that’s all about soon enough. In the meantime, she’s tracing some signals he’s sending—riding alongside them as they flick out ahead of the train, along the rails and through a maze of tunnels, heading beneath the Himalayas, diving down toward the root of the mountains—

  Down here there’s nothing to see. Nothing to hear. Nothing going on at all. It’s just the two of them now, waiting in this room. The lights of zone went off fifteen minutes ago.

  “Too long,” says Sarmax.

  As he speaks, the mech triggers a light in his helmet. His face is two-day stubble and half a century’s worth of lines. The only warmth his grey eyes hold is some kind of distant amusement.

  “I don’t think so,” says Spencer.

  “Who cares what you think? It’s already begun.”

  “Probably.”

  “Definitely.”

  “So why haven’t they switched this thing on?”

  “I presume,” says Sarmax, “that they’re waiting for their moment.”

  Spencer nods. He figures that moment will come soon enough. The two men are deep inside something that was separated from the exterior zone to begin with, machinery that’s situated in a mammoth cave beneath several klicks of rock, cut off from the rest of this black base, with all systems shut off as an additional precaution. Because you can never be too careful.

  “Failsafe after failsafe,” mutters Spencer.

  “Hostile razors could be inside already,” says Sarmax.

  “Imagine that.”

  “We’ll need to keep a close read on the politics when it all lights up.”

  And that’s putting it mildly. The Eurasian Coalition is like two bodies sewn together. There’s a reason its zone felt so jury-rigged—why it was so difficult to line up all the operational hierarchies. Spencer’s wishing he had paid more attention to them on the way in, before they left the zone behind and reached this compartmentalized microzone d
eeper in the Earth than he’s ever been before. Parts of it were opaque to him even then—the inner enclaves, presumably, but now the entire thing’s been turned off, and he’s blind. He doesn’t like it.

  Apparently Sarmax likes it even less. The mech’s blind by definition, and it wasn’t hard for Spencer to get him to agree to stay here until things clarify. So they’ve remained in this chamber for the last quarter-hour—just them and the unholy amount of nuclear warheads that line the walls around them.

  “What do you think the total count is?” says Sarmax.

  “About fifty thousand.”

  “Gotta be more than that—”

  “I’m talking about the ones we’ve seen,” says Spencer.

  “I’m asking you to guess about the ones we haven’t.”

  “We’re more than a klick deep into this bitch,” says Spencer. “How the fuck am I supposed to guess—”

  But that’s when he feels something clutch at his mind—

  * * *

  And retract. Sitting here at L5, she can’t reach that deep. She knows someone’s down there, though. Right now that’s all she needs to know. She hauls her mind back to the borders of the zone—lets herself slot through that zone, out of the Himalayas, out beneath China—and back into the U.S. zone, back out into space. Earth is getting closed off to her now anyway. The carpet of directed energy has become too thick. It’s all interference now—all satellites spitting light and plasma at one another in a web that’s starting to look almost solid. Earth’s upper atmosphere blooms incandescent. The lower orbits are a chaos of wreckage.