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  “We’ll be on the ground in five minutes,” Avalon said from the cockpit. She turned back toward her passengers, raising an eyebrow at Cray’s condition. She also noticed that Lea was holding the bomb, and addressed her directly. “I have an SOT standing by to take us to Phao Yin. It’s time for you to give up your little toy.”

  Lea’s eyes narrowed.

  “You didn’t think I would do it,” she said.

  “I saw the way you handled those agents,” Avalon replied. “You know what you’re doing with that quicksilver. You might even have the guts to push that button.” She gestured toward Cray. “But not as long as he’s around.” She seemed to pity Lea—almost. “Didn’t take long for Alden to get under your skin, did it?”

  “About as long as it took with you.”

  Avalon held out her hand.

  “Give it to me,” she ordered.

  Lea turned the MFI off and handed it over. As the free agent tucked the device away, Lea wondered if Avalon would kill her right away, while Cray was watching. For a moment it seemed possible—but then Avalon returned her attention to the controls, making a sharp turn to the west and heading inland. A minute later they were down on the deck, a frothy mist of ocean spray forming on the windows as they approached the coast.

  “Baltimore free flight,” Avalon signaled. “This is SAM 61. Request priority clearance.”

  The SOT was a charter, parked in a private hangar and flanked by armed CSS. That was how it appeared from the tarmac, and the impression was a good one. It wasn’t until she got close that Lea noticed the swagger and loose discipline, and she realized the troops were a contingent of Zone agents wearing corporate uniforms. Whatever Phao Yin was paying the Authority, he must have been into them for a damned fortune.

  All their weapons were trained on Cray the moment he stepped off the hovercraft. Lea was amazed at how they stood back to let him pass, as if their guns offered them little protection. They knew this man, the way they knew a ghost story—and they regarded him with a reverence that ran the line between hatred and terror. Avalon was the only one who would get near him—and from their reaction to her, Lea guessed the agents feared her almost as much. They kept their distance the entire time, footsteps falling into spontaneous unison as they shadowed their prisoners into the hangar.

  The engines of the SOT were already running at idle, fully prepared for liftoff. Avalon went ahead of Cray and Lea, stopping briefly to speak with one of the pilots, who was waiting for them at the bottom of the boarding stairway. Avalon then motioned for them to come forward.

  Cray walked right past her, not saying a word. Lea started to follow him into the aircraft, but paused after a couple of steps. She turned and looked down at Avalon, if only to let the free agent know she had not surrendered completely.

  “Where are you taking us?” she asked.

  Avalon’s features were pale and enigmatic beneath long wisps of perfectly black hair. A cold breeze made them quiver against her cheek.

  “Ask your friend Zoe.”

  She then clamped down on Lea’s arm, and dragged her up the stairs. It was an impersonal act of violence, meant only to reassert Avalon’s dominance. Lea put up a brief struggle, but only out of pride. Avalon was much stronger, and tossed her into the cabin with hardly a backward glance. Lea barely managed to stay on her feet and had to steady herself by holding on to one of the passenger seats. By then the aircraft was already rolling, backing its way out of the hangar.

  “Come on,” Cray said, appearing at her side. “You better sit down.”

  Lea was passive, allowing him to guide her to the back of the aircraft. Cray lowered her into one of the seats and buckled her in. The SOT moved past the taxiway, and accelerated fast toward liftoff. After a few moments, Lea felt the ground retreat beneath her. Then the anger began to set in, displacing every other sensation.

  Cray took a seat across the aisle from Lea. The space he put between them was not lost on her. Nor his cautious posture.

  “You okay?”

  “I will be.” Lea sighed, drawn into the black mirror of her window. “As soon as I give Miss Congeniality there a taste of her own juice.” Her head lolled back toward him. “How about you?”

  “I’ll live.”

  “You don’t sound too happy.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “If I’m going to die,” she pointed out, “at least you could be good company.”

  Cray downshifted into guilt. Lea smiled, reaching across the aisle to squeeze his hand.

  “Relax,” she said. “I’m not dead yet.”

  “Hell of a lot of good it did.” Cray fell into his chair, isolating himself further. “You shouldn’t be here.”

  “You talking about the part where you and Lyssa get blown to kingdom come?” Lea waved him off. “Too Butch and Sundance for my taste. I like how you handled it—smooth, but mysterious.”

  “It was the only way I could think of to get you out of there.”

  She raised an eyebrow.

  “Simple as that?”

  “There are other reasons,” Cray said. “But that was prime. If I thought Phao Yin would kill you outright, I wouldn’t have done it.”

  “Yin is insane. There’s no telling what he’ll do.”

  “He’ll do what he always does. As long as he thinks you’re useful, you’ll stay alive.”

  “And he’s bound to find me useful because of my past experiences with the Inru,” Lea finished for him, not hiding her disgust. “What a choice. I get to be Phao Yin’s bitch, or I get to be dead.”

  “If that’s what it takes,” Cray told her. “All that matters is finding a way out. If that means giving your loyalty to Yin, so be it.” After a hard pause, he added: “It’s a better deal than Funky got.”

  “That wasn’t your fault, Cray,” Lea said. “If anybody’s responsible, it’s me. I punched his ticket the minute I sent Zoe out. He wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t taken him in.”

  “I could have gone to see Lyssa alone.”

  “Then it would be me back on that station, along with Funky. One way or the other, it comes up the same.” Lea reached over and turned his face toward hers, forcing him to see her. “And you’re forgetting—I’m the one who got you involved. Anybody else, we’d probably all be dead by now. If you ask me . . . it’s fate.”

  Cray took her hand in his. She responded to him in kind, brushing her fingers against his skin. That same electricity was there, but somehow different. The intensity had not diminished; it was now just a matter of control. At the start of Cray’s Ascension, Lea was uncertain whether the machine or the man would emerge dominant. It wasn’t a question anymore.

  “You really believe there’s such a thing?”

  “Yeah.” She smiled. “I do.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because everything in my life has been chaos,” Lea said. “Now, everything seems so clear. I don’t think that happens by accident.”

  “Then tell me what you see.”

  She shook her head.

  “Not what I see,” she said. “Just what I missed.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The chance to get to know you. We could’ve been pretty good together.”

  “We are good together,” he said. “The rest of it just didn’t work out.”

  “We still have now.”

  Lea drew closer. The way he looked reminded her of the first time she had seen him in Vienna. She had been playing with him then, and he played her right back. But now, this thing was real. It was the only thing that felt real to her.

  “It’s not much,” he said.

  “It never is,” Lea replied, and kissed him.

  The SOT dropped out of its trajectory an hour later, while it was still over the Atlantic. As it broke the high clouds, Lea spotted the familiar outline of Incorporated Europe, the western shores of the continent coming up fast. The landmass was enshrouded in an eroding purple twilight, magni
ficent against the curvature of the Earth—and the last place Lea expected Phao Yin to be. Europe was the heart and soul of the Collective, far from the lawless political scape of the Zone—and that made it especially dangerous ground for the Inru. If Yin had been conducting his operations from there, he was better than invisible. That he kept those whispers out of the Axis was nothing short of a miracle.

  The aircraft descended rapidly, dropping down into Gibraltar airspace and making a lazy roll to the northeast, just as the coastal cities turned themselves on to beat back the night. The pilot vectored along the same lines as the pulser grid, following the larger arteries that pumped traffic into the center of the continent. Cray slipped in close to Lea and traced their progress through the window, while she tried to map the subtle reach he was making with his mind. Fascinated as she was, it still scared her when Cray was only half-there.

  “You got that look,” Lea observed.

  “Just an impression, that’s all,” Cray told her. “There’s a lot of background noise—you know, like voices in a crowded room. It takes a while, but I can play them back from memory one at a time.”

  “Is that how you found out about Funky?”

  “No. That was different.”

  Neurons began to tingle. Lea posed her next question with caution: “How?”

  “He was in the Axis when it happened,” Cray explained. “Or at least part of him was. That part is still out there, searching. Disembodied energy working on a flatline. It’s been collecting for some time.”

  “Is that . . . ?” she began, uncertain if she really wanted to know. The implications went beyond disturbing, into the realm of the existential. “What else is out there?”

  “Everything and everyone connected to the Axis.”

  Lea sounded distant, even to herself.

  “That means part of me is out there, too,” she said. “From the interface.”

  “From anybody who’s ever interfaced,” he affirmed. “First law of thermodynamics: no energy in the universe is ever created or destroyed. It only changes form.”

  From reality to the Axis, Lea thought. Physical to virtual.

  She looked up at him. “What does that make you?”

  “Just a man,” Cray said, and squeezed her on the shoulder. “For as long as that lasts.” He returned to his seat, leaving her to sort out the possibilities for herself.

  The drop to subsonic jolted Lea out of her thoughts. She turned pensive attention to the gridpaths and lights that meshed into the tight web on the ground below, then watched them part as the SOT entered the space of a large airport. She tried to angle ahead to get bearings on its location, but could find no distinguishing landmarks. She did, however, spot several other aircraft moving out of their way—clearing a path for them to land. The pilot, it seemed, was wasting no time in getting them down.

  She glanced over at Cray, looking for clues. He was inscrutable, almost messianic.

  “Hell of a day,” she whispered.

  A gauntlet of straight lines bisected the dark, marking the edges of a taxiway that led to a bank of reserve hangars. As soon as the SOT landed, its pilot steered off the runway and made a run toward the buildings. Through her window, Lea spotted a small convoy of escort vehicles parked on the tarmac directly ahead. They started up as the SOT approached, a swirl of red and blue spilling out from their light mounts. They moved as a tight cluster, across the pavement on an intercept course. The convoy then branched out, quickly falling into positions all around the aircraft. Lea only wished they were the real authorities, coming to arrest her.

  One of the vehicles took the lead, its driver motioning for the SOT to follow. The pilot complied and directed his aircraft toward the largest of the hangars. Spotlights ignited around the structure in advance of their arrival, bathing the aircraft in a harsh flood as the massive doors rolled open. The SOT taxied inside and stopped, as several dozen troops emerged and took up strategic positions throughout the hangar.

  Avalon walked back to join her two guests. She carried Lea’s quicksilver, which protruded obviously from beneath her coat. For a second, Lea considered reaching for it—but she didn’t want to give Avalon an excuse. There would be time for that later.

  “Get up,” the free agent ordered.

  Both of them did as they were told. Avalon marched them down the aisle and out the door, down the stairs to where a line of troops waited. A hovercraft was docked there, open hatches awaiting their arrival.

  Rifle sights followed the prisoners as they walked toward the small ship, not resting until both of them were securely on board. Avalon then cleared the troops out, climbing into the cockpit and sealing the hatch behind her. She started up the turbofans, which generated a misty hiss in the closed space of the hangar. Releasing the docking clamps, the free agent put the ship into a hover a few meters off the ground. It drifted sideways after a kick from the lateral thrusters, floating past the wide body of the SOT and turning about as it exited the hangar doors.

  Once outside, Avalon killed the running lights and took the hovercraft straight up. Blackness enveloped the small ship, offset only by the dimness of the cabin lights. Lea waited until they got to altitude, then leaned forward to get a glimpse over the free agent’s shoulder. The view through the forward window offered few clues, until Avalon swung around to her intended course and the shape of a city skyline formed on the horizon. The outlines were familiar, a jumble of ancient and modern structures that Lea had once haunted on a regular basis. Her experiences there had, in fact, become legend—at least to those who knew her as Heretic. But that had been a long time ago, even if the memories were fresh enough to touch.

  Paris, after all, was a city you didn’t forget.

  Cray pictured their destination, long before Avalon steered them toward it. The image appeared grandiose and magnetic—though it was the latter sensation that disturbed him. Just as Lyssa had put the hook on him, so did the tower he constructed in his mind. It meant that the machinery was already in place. Phao Yin was waiting for him to set it into motion, but it was alive nonetheless.

  Even without the flash acting on his nervous system, Cray would have been able to sense it. He knew the street, and right now it was popping off that wavelength like a superconductor. The city was just out of phase, its rhythms like a recording played back three-quarter speed. It wasn’t until they crossed into the Paris centerplex that he understood the magnitude of the disturbance, and then only because of the sudden lack of input. Beyond its borders, the city was a manufactured simulation; inside, it was a complete media blackout.

  The eye of the storm, Cray thought. No one else in the world could have picked up on it—even those who had spent lifetimes in the Axis, breaching the kind of security that passed for magic in the civilized world. Dark magic. Black ice. There was enough here to drown a thousand hammerjacks.

  All radiating from a single source, directly ahead.

  “Paris free flight,” Avalon signaled. “This is SAM 600 transport.”

  “SAM 600, go ahead.”

  “Requesting permission for high-insert approach.” She leveled off just above the traverse grid, aiming for the hub at the center of the old city. “My vector is zero-two-seven, gridline plus twenty meters. This is a courier flight, over.”

  “SAM 600, acknowledged. State your destination.”

  “Point Eiffel.”

  “Roger that.” The voice on the other end radioed instructions, while Avalon maintained position and awaited clearance. A short distance off, the slender columns that formed the tower sloped gracefully into the cosmopolitan sky. “Come around to course zero-four-nine. You’re second in line for landing.”

  Avalon disengaged the turbines and went on thrusters, swinging into a lazy turn around the east side of the tower. Massive floodlights at its base cast a reverent glow over the steel meshwork—a fusion of beauty and garishness, made more dazzling by the web of laserlight that encircled the old landmark. The free agent aimed for the top of the tower, gl
iding over a flotilla of pulsers that rode the grid in and out of the centerplex. As the hovercraft flew in closer, Lea spotted a small hoverpad beneath the domed apex—a tiny platform, large enough to accommodate only a few ships. Avalon hung back for a few moments to allow another craft to lift off, then moved in to take the empty spot.

  A bank of landing lights blazed against the lower hull of the hovercraft as it settled out of the sky, the fans kicking up a froth of ice particles. Avalon shut the engines down, securing the ship and turning back to her two passengers.

  “Move,” she ordered.

  Cray and Lea walked across the hoverpad toward a magnetic lift, while Avalon shadowed them from behind. Lea was uneasy as they waited for the lift to arrive and stayed close to Cray the entire time.

  “The whole tower is a transmitter,” Cray said to her. It was a foregone conclusion that Avalon could hear everything, but the free agent didn’t seem at all concerned. “That’s how the Inru hide this place. There’s enough concentrated ice to cover the whole damned continent. It’s like one gigantic logic trap.”

  “More like a hole in the Axis,” Lea agreed.

  “It will be,” Cray intoned, “if Phao Yin gets his way. First here, then the incorporated territories—after that, who the hell knows?”

  “Speculation doesn’t befit you, Dr. Alden,” Avalon said. “Yin will be disappointed—but then, I never believed you were worth all the trouble.”

  Cray smiled back coldly.

  “That’s not your call to make,” he replied. “Is it?”

  “An appeal to my vanity,” the free agent observed. “You must be getting desperate.”

  “Not as desperate as you,” Cray shot back. “I never could figure out how somebody like you got hooked up with this bunch. What did Yin promise you? Money? A seat of power in his new empire? Tell me—what does it take to get a free agent to break an oath of loyalty to her masters?”