The Exodus Towers #2

The question was how hard it would be to undo.
Belém, Brazil

18.OCT.2283

TANIA STEPPED DOWN the rollaway staircase, each footfall producing a soft metallic click on the textured metal steps.

At the bottom, her feet met freshly poured concrete, and she smiled.

Compared to her last visit to the colony, almost two months earlier, the base camp was almost unrecognizable.

“Impressive,” Zane said behind her. He came down the steps slowly, his attention shifting from his feet to the scene around him and back. Tim appeared in the climber’s airlock next. The young man squinted in the sudden brightness, and then smiled as he took in the camp.

Large swaths of the ground within the Elevator’s aura had been surfaced with concrete, and this had gone a long way toward reducing the mud, dust, and misery within the camp. The concrete had been poured in long rectangular strips, and the spaces between were surrounded by low brick walls. Black soil filled those walled-in areas, and in places she could see signs of vegetables beginning to poke through.

All of the tents were gone. In their place, a mishmash of motor homes, modified cargo containers, and small prefab houses served as living space. These were placed in orderly rows along the concrete strips, with the spaces between them serving as narrow alleys. One wide avenue had been left, from the main entrance of the camp to the base of the Elevator, and then on to the shore of the river beyond.

She glanced west. Much of the work being done now focused on the nearby university buildings. These lay just outside the Elevator’s aura, but a clever plan had been hatched to make a courtyard, open on the side that faced the Elevator, into the new impound yard for the aura towers. Two benefits came from this approach: The towers were naturally protected on three sides by university buildings, and in turn the towers provided a protective aura around the structures. This enabled their use for storage and, where feasible, more living space. But the buildings were in bad shape after five years of neglect, and so nearly half the colony now labored to restore them to a passable quality.

It had taken Tania some time to approve the plan. What if the few remaining aura towers suddenly “woke up” and plowed through the buildings like they were made from paper? Anyone inside would surely be killed in the resulting collapse. But as time went on, and no more aura towers showed signs of autonomous movement, she found it harder and harder to argue. At the ninety-day mark, she changed her vote to “yes” for the plan, and work started the next morning.

Tania turned east. That side of camp now looked like a garbage dump compared to the rest. No concrete had been poured there yet, and any equipment that needed repair or dismantling had been carted to that side temporarily. She saw three colonists climbing over a rusted piece of machinery she didn’t recognize. They used wrenches and hammers to yank portions off the bulky object. Spare parts, probably.

Karl strode up. They shook hands and she saw he labored to breathe, as if he’d just run a kilometer.

“Welcome down,” he said between gasps of air. He shook Zane’s hand next, then Tim’s.

“This is miraculous progress,” Zane said.

Karl nodded, still short on breath.

“Are you okay? Is it the headaches?” Tania asked.

He grinned at her, took a few seconds to get under control, and then spoke. “Running late is all. Thanks for coming.”

“Of course. I’m amazed at the progress, Karl. It’s like a little city.”

The pride on his face warmed her. “Well,” he said, “no time to stand around. Come with me?”

“What’s this surprise?” she asked as they walked northwest toward the wide gap in the camp’s barricade. “The firearms training you promised, I hope?”

“Later, Tania. Right now, I have more progress to share.” He led her through the camp entrance.

Four armed colonists, two on either side of the opening, waved at them as they passed. “Keep near the tower,” one said, answering Tania’s unspoken question as to the border of the aura. The wall marked it, roughly, but had been built five meters inside the actual radius to allow for some buffer. But one aura tower waited just outside, and Karl gave it a gentle nudge in the direction he wanted to go.

Once they rounded the corner and were outside the barricade, Tania saw the surprise he’d invited them down for.

Four aura towers were placed in a line formation along the Belém street north of the camp. At the base of each were four colonists, all decked out in survival gear.

Skyler and his three immune friends stood in front of the line, and Karl led the group to them.

“Is this what I think it is?” Tania asked. She flashed Skyler a smile and he returned it, but his expression had lost the warmth she used to find when their eyes met. She wondered if, or how, she could ever win it back.

“Tania, Zane, Tim, may I present your scavenger corps,” Skyler said, gesturing.

The idea had not appealed to Tania when first proposed, and not just because such a setup would required the full-time assignment of four aura towers. She simply didn’t relish the idea of putting anyone into harm’s way, not after what had happened in the rainforest. Granted, with so few towers left the need to scavenge for supplies had become a critical necessity. To her, though, Skyler and his new crew seemed capable of handling the load. It wasn’t until Karl had pointed out to her the marked difference in productivity between Skyler’s outings and those arranged ad hoc by random colonists that she’d relented. “They just don’t think like he does,” he’d said to her. “We need full-time, dedicated crews.”

“I’m impressed,” Tania said to them, loud enough for all to hear.

Skyler came to stand next to her, and turned so he faced the crews as well. “Each group has a dedicated tower, as you know, and each is assigned a certain portion of the city.”

The immune called Ana stepped forward and presented Tania with a map. She took it and smiled at the young woman, but she was looking at Skyler. I know that look, Tania thought. She felt her pulse quicken and a hollowness in her gut that she recognized as jealousy. The sensation surprised her as much as the affection she saw between Skyler and the newcomer. Tania forced herself to look at the paper in her hands, but she couldn’t focus on any of it. What had she expected? Skyler to wait around for her? As if he had no more choice in the matter than the moon did in orbiting Earth?

Tim stepped in next to her, just behind her shoulder. “Let’s have a look,” he said, a bit too loud.

He gripped the edge of the map just below where her fingers pinched the page. Only then did Tania realize her hands were shaking. Not much, but enough that he might have noticed. Whether Tim had meant to rescue her from the moment or not, she felt grateful for the defusion.

On the map the city was divided into quarters of roughly equal size. Those in the more densely constructed parts of the city were a bit smaller, while the vast slums had larger blocks.

“Each section has a name,” Skyler said, “and the crew assigned to that area shares the name.” He leaned close and ran a finger across each section, calling the name as he went. “Tombstones, Dockyards, Ugly Church, and Eden Estates.”

With each name, one of the crews arrayed before her gave a little call, like any military outfit might. At first she cringed at the silly names, but she knew they matched what the colonists already called those areas. The dark skyscrapers of downtown looked like tombstones. The dockyards spanned almost the entire waterfront. The others she could guess, save the last. “Eden Estates sounds nice at least.”

“Oh, believe me, it’s the worst of the lot. Sarcasm was in order, and I don’t say that lightly.”

“Okay,” she said, a little disappointed.

“Now,” Skyler said, “watch. Colton! If you please?”

A young man with the crew farthest to Tania’s left nodded and began to walk away from his tower. He walked some distance, toward the invisible edge of the tower’s protective aura, when suddenly he stopped and held up his arm. A wristwatch-like device was strapped there, and it beeped loudly. Even from here, almost two hundred meters away, Tania could hear it clearly.

“We found the devices in a pet store,” Ana explained brightly. “Supposed to tell you when your dog has left the yard.”

“Each tower has a beacon, and the crew assigned to that tower all wear matched receivers. Stray too far, we’ve set it for one hundred seventy-five meters, and the alert goes off.”

“That’s fantastic,” Tania said. The fear she’d confessed to Karl, of such crews becoming careless, or losing track of the tower assigned to them during a fight with subhumans, faded. “Could we do something like this for all the colonists?”

“Maybe,” Karl said before Skyler could answer. “The problem is that the receiver can only be paired to one transmitter. Works great for these crews, but that’s because they’re only worried about their own tower.”

“We could at least provide them for those who stay near camp, tied to the Elevator cord itself,” Skyler added. “But we need to find more, first. The store that provided these is now depleted.”

“I see,” Tania said. “Please do that; it would give the colonists some peace of mind.”

Skyler looked at Karl. “Bump it up the list,” he said.

“Will do.”

Tania handed the map back to Ana and returned her attention to the crews themselves. “What else?” she said.

“Each crew has been trained,” Skyler said. “Everything I could think of in terms of scavenging, plus some basic tracking and survival techniques thanks to Pablo, Vanessa, and Ana here.”

Tania nodded thanks to the three immunes. She noted how they all stood together. The fifth crew, she thought.

“In addition we’ve drilled them extensively in self-defense, tactics, and weapon use. They all have assigned arms they carry and are responsible for maintenance of. I’ve left it up to each crew to designate their leader.”

“Leaders!” Karl shouted. “Come over here, please.”

One member from each crew jogged up. The one called Colton was last to arrive, returning from his demonstration of the beacon.

“You all are to report to the comm room each morning that you’re in camp, at eight, for your priority lists,” Karl said to them. Then he turned to Tania. “I’ll be the keeper of the master list, and everyone’s been instructed to refer to me any colonist asking for something. I’ll also keep an inventory list of what the crews bring in.”

“That’s a lot to do,” Tania noted. “You should pick an assistant from the camp.”

“I may even pick two,” Karl agreed.

“Well,” Tania said, “I’m very impressed, and I want to thank all of you for volunteering for this role. I know it will have its dangers, but your work will be vital to the success of the colony.”

The leaders all smiled and muttered acknowledgments. Tania hoped the statement had enough sincerity. She heard the words as if they came from someone else—a politician or an actor, not her. In her heart of hearts, Tania would still rather be up on Black Level, alone in a quiet lab, poring over telescope data.

Absently she smacked an insect that had landed on the back of her neck.

The show ended, Karl dismissed the crews to begin working on the lists they’d been provided that morning. “No time to waste,” he said, waving them off.

Tania watched with some fascination as each leader returned to their crew. Each group huddled over laminated or digital maps, and within minutes the first team began to guide their aura tower down the dusty street.

“That young man,” Skyler said, “Colton, who demonstrated the warning beacon.”

“Yes?” Tania asked.

“He’s bright. Motivated. Someone to elevate when the time is right. Pardon the pun.”

“Good to know.”

Karl cleared his throat. “Same goes for that one next to him,” he said, pointing. A dark-haired youngster in Colton’s crew strode out in front of the tower, scouting ahead. Even from this distance Tania could see the innate communication between them. Body language and simple commands that kept each constantly aware of the other. “Nachu,” Karl said. “A machinist from Platz Station. He and Colton both were, actually. Best friends. Each is clever as hell in his own right, but as a team they’re a marvel to watch.”

“Noted,” Tania said. “As the colony grows we will need good leaders.”

“Don’t go stealing my people so soon,” Skyler protested.

“Not soon, but in time. Before the Builders return … if they do … we’ll want to have a task force that can be mobilized quickly, whatever happens.”

“Agreed,” Skyler and Karl said in unison.

A sober silence followed. She despised being reminded that the Builders might not be done. If their schedule held as calculated, the colony had a year and some few months before another “event” would occur. But what might happen was anyone’s guess, and Tania detested speculation without data.

Yet the words of Neil Platz still haunted her. He’d been wrong about the third event, expecting a Builder invasion fleet to come and claim the planet, but that didn’t mean his fear wouldn’t yet be realized. Who knew how many Builder ships were lined up to reach the planet? There could be a hundred more events, until the point that they’d be arriving daily. Hourly.

Tania shivered at the prospect despite the heat. She struggled enough to imagine, or avoid imagining, what might come next. To dwell on it would only lead to what Greg and Marcus called “analysis paralysis.”

“I do have one question,” she said.

Both men turned away from the departing scavenger crew.

“Skyler, there’s four zones on the map, but unless I’m mistaken we have five scavenger crews, don’t we? What about you and your …?” She nodded toward camp, where the three immunes had gone.

“My crew,” Skyler said. His voice conveyed pride and sadness in equal quantity. “We’ll help the other crews as needed, scout the border regions beyond the marked areas, and also explore the larger buildings where the towers can’t provide full protective coverage.”

“I see.”

“There’s more,” he said. He shuffled on his feet. “I want to find another aircraft. We’ll soon discover needs that Belém can’t fulfill. And eventually …”

“Yes?”

Skyler looked north toward the horizon. “The other tower groups that left that night. We should find out where they went, I think, before … well, before.”

“Before the Builders come back,” she said, finishing for him.

Skyler nodded, grim-faced. “The group here, out in the rainforest, went to surround a crash site. The others probably did the same, and we’ll find the same dangers, but you never know.”

“And don’t forget,” Karl put in, “only four tower groups left. Tania, you spotted five of the smaller ships arriving, right?”

“Five that I saw, yes.”

“So one is unaccounted for. We should consider seeking it, as well. Maybe there’s one undefended by towers, one we can study easily.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way,” Tania admitted. In her mind she ran through scenarios, techniques that could be used to find all the ships.

“I want to follow one of the three remaining tracks, see where it goes,” Skyler said. “Maybe we’ll find they landed in some pattern, and the mystery fifth ship’s location will become clear.”

“Perhaps,” Tania said. She’d had the same thought, but with no access to satellite imagery she had no way to confirm it. Skyler and Karl seemed to be waiting for her approval of the plan. “I’m loath to risk you, Skyler. You and your crew.”

“Everything we’re doing out here is a risk. And honestly I’d feel more comfortable in a plane than walking these streets.”

Tania searched his eyes, trying to decide if he was deliberately looking to get away from the camp, or really wanted to seek the missing towers. Some of both, she concluded. “The colony comes first,” she said. She noted his disappointment instantly, and held up a hand. “I just want to make sure the new crews are handling their roles before you go anywhere.”

There were problems right from the start, and Skyler began to wonder if he’d ever be able to relinquish his role as the herder of cats.

Despite all the training, the new scavenger crews missed what should have been obvious opportunities with frustrating regularity. Not only that, but they took their marked regions on the map too seriously, and would bypass ripe sites just because they were on the wrong side of a street.

Logistics were a constant struggle. Karl and his chosen assistant, a former secretary to Neil Platz named Alfonz, struggled to come up with a decent method of cataloging all the sites within the city, their salvageable contents, and also what had already been returned to the camp. When the colonists’ shifting priorities and daily emergencies were added to the mix, it became almost impossible to give the scavenger crews clear orders.

Skyler spent more time venturing out with the lowest-performing crews than he did with his own immunes. A woman named Rebecca ran the Tombstones crew efficiently enough, and the crew called Eden, for Eden Estates, took to their short-straw task of farming the eastern slums with surprising zeal and energy, thanks to their two inventive leaders, Colton and Nachu. But the other crews had varying degrees of success.

Worst of all, subhuman sightings began to rise sharply, as if the subs had been released from their vigil at the crashed Builder ship. Soon the crews were faced with almost daily encounters with the beings. The instinct they displayed to surround the crashed ship, and moan their strange chant, had apparently left them. Skyler feared that the armored versions would begin to show up, but as of yet no one had seen them, and the monitors placed at the circle showed no sign of them beyond shadows within the haze.

Those in camp could hear the distant, sporadic gunfire roll through the city, and often found crews returning empty-handed, or worse, with injuries that required tending.

On one rainy November morning, a battle erupted from the area called Ugly Church that lasted for almost an hour. So long, in fact, that Skyler gathered his own team and set out across the city to try to help.

Ugly Church was so named for the massive Catholic cathedral that dominated the cityscape there. The structure itself was, ironically, quite beautiful, despite the vines that now crept over and through its lower levels, or the rats that watched from every shadow. The “ugly” part of the name was due to the skeletons. Thousands littered the grounds, and no colonist had yet dared to venture inside.

Roughly five years ago, when the disease swept through here like a sudden thunderstorm, the pious had flocked to their house of worship, filled the place, and crowded around it in some kind of—ultimately useless—mass prayer.

Skyler and his team spotted the Ugly Church crew’s aura tower near a low wall that partially ringed a traffic circle. The church itself was a few blocks away, but even here there were skeletal remains strewn about the ground. Time and rainfall had, at least, done away with the stench.

They arrived too late.

After a brief skirmish to finish off the remaining subhumans in the area, Skyler found himself amid a massacre. All four members of the Ugly Church crew lay dead. Two had apparently shot each other in an unfortunate bit of crossfire, though Skyler figured that may have been a mercy given what they were up against.

Skyler and Pablo cleaned up the scene as best they could while Ana and Vanessa stood guard. The fallen crew were buried in a shallow grave, after the useful equipment had been removed from their persons. Skyler worked methodically, having long ago abandoned any qualms about such things. Pablo, on the other hand, paused frequently to still his shaking hands.

Every other crew was called back to camp after that. The setback ate away at Skyler’s optimism. Since Gabriel and his cronies were defeated, and the strange alien ship with its black-clad defenders had been willfully ignored, the camp had operated with surprising efficiency. But the relative lack of subhumans in the surrounding region had lulled the colonists. Many had still never seen a subhuman since setting foot off the climber car that brought them down. Now that the dam had broken, it almost didn’t matter that the Builders had provided movable pockets of aura. Everyone cowered within the camp, patrolling the crude wall, crying alarms at every shadow that moved in the surrounding slums.

After much discussion a revised system was put in place. A new crew would be trained to replace the one they’d lost, but in the meantime the three remaining would be reshuffled to give each at least one skilled combat veteran. For a time they would forget scavenging, though, until the sudden population burst of subhumans could be dealt with.

Skyler had lived through one purge. The Purge, as it was called in Darwin. He’d fought in it, side by side with Jake, among others. Weeks of roaming the flat, scrubby lands around Darwin, killing every one of the creatures they came across. And in those days they were legion.

A similar effort was mounted in Belém. The scavenger crews, along with a handful of volunteers who could handle weapons, began to run sweeps back and forth in an expanding circle centered on the Elevator base. Skyler rode in the back of a pickup truck driven by Vanessa. Ana and Pablo were with him, and the three of them armed themselves with good high-power rifles. They drove back and forth along the line all day, helping if needed, scouting if not.

On the first day, no subhumans were encountered, but the circle had only expanded out two hundred meters from the wall. By the end of that week, they’d pushed out a full kilometer, and more than forty subs had been shot without a single injury to the colonists.

To go farther would strain resources to the limit. After a brief debate with all the various leaders, Skyler pointed out that unless they could somehow actually hold that ground, which was impossible given their numbers and the limited aura towers, the best course of action was to simply unleash the “ring of extermination” once a week, in order to keep the buffer zone around the camp as clear as possible. Any scavenging missions beyond that one-klick area would require special permission and would be handled by two teams working together.

By the height of wet season, the camp was running like a machine again.

Climbers worked their way up or down the Elevator cord daily, sometimes even in multiples. Subhuman encounters around camp dropped to manageable levels as the weekly purges became a camp routine. Indeed, the colonists became accustomed to the creatures, and most were now adept at fighting them. The sight of rifles slung over shoulders, or pistols holstered at the waist, became the norm.

Every month, with only some variance, Melville Station would receive another forty “volunteers” from Darwin. The people who could be vouched for by friends or relatives in camp always integrated quickly enough. Everyone else, those chosen via suspect criteria by Russell Blackfield, were kept on the station under guard for a few days, and then sent to places where they could be watched around the clock. To everyone’s amazement, and intense suspicion, none showed signs of being spies. A few reported that Russell no longer bothered to pick the migrants, that he’d delegated the task to one of the old Orbital Council members. One migrant, Skyler heard, told of a newfound sense of purpose in Darwin. Gardens apparently flourished, and along with the farm platforms Russell had schemed out of Tania, the food situation was almost under control. Neither Tania nor Zane was overly troubled by this news, as neither felt the colony could handle too many more migrants. Soon the ecosystems surrounding each Elevator would no longer have need of one another, and this worried Skyler.

Skyler woke one December morning to the familiar sound of rain rattling against the roof of the APC, which had become his home. He checked the adjacent vehicle and found Ana’s bunk was empty, which was not uncommon since she’d finished mourning her brother. Depression behind her, the girl woke early with an abundance of energy and often slipped out to wander the camp before Skyler stirred. She had a voracious appetite to learn, and he rarely found her in the same place twice when he called the crew together. Sometimes she would be helping load or unload a climber. He’d found her helping in the gardens, pouring concrete, dismantling electronics for parts, and fishing. Always she would be under the tutelage of one camp expert or another, and she made fast friends with just about everyone she spent time with.

None of this troubled Skyler in the least. A multitude of friends within the colony meant she wouldn’t always be following him around like a puppy. Not that he didn’t enjoy her company. She was bright and funny and, sometimes, impossible. Where Tania always seemed to enter into conversations as an equal, Ana either played the eager student or the headstrong, passionate firebrand. There was little in the way of middle ground for her, and it made her constant company an exhausting affair.

So her absence most mornings didn’t bother Skyler at all, and indeed he learned to love the early hours as he used to. Coffee and a serving of oatmeal with fresh fruit or avocado. He’d sit around a small heater and sip his drink, discussing everything and nothing with whoever happened to join him. Pablo usually, though he talked little. Vanessa could hold her own on just about any topic, but tended to sleep late.

Karl would drop by to share a cup once in a while. They saw each other most mornings anyway, for the list reviews, and anyway the older man’s motor home was all the way on the other side of camp. Word had it he’d taken a lover, a woman of similar age who had been some midlevel analyst on Platz Station, and Karl’s rare appearances for morning coffee seemed to corroborate the rumor.

And so Skyler was surprised that morning when he found Karl seated at the cook fire, next to a pot of boiling water and a pair of mugs.

“This is a rare honor,” Skyler said as he pulled on a sweater. All of the vehicles left behind by Gabriel were parked with their back doors facing one another, forming a ring. A fire pit had been set up in the center of this, surrounded by a mismatched collection of plastic chairs and tables. Rain drummed on a giant blue and white patio umbrella that covered the small communal space, tied to the roof racks of the surrounding vehicles.

“I miss seeing your pretty face in the morning light,” he shot back. With two hands he carefully extended a full mug to Skyler. A few drops sloshed over the side and sizzled as they hit the portable stove.

After a careful sip, Skyler rubbed his eyes and settled into a low beach chair. The constant prattle of raindrops on the umbrella drowned out the sounds of the colony around them. “What dire problem has you making me coffee at six in the morning, Karl?”

“The comm’s out again,” he said flatly.

“Give it a good smack on the side.”

“Tried that. But it seems some water dripped through a hole in the roof of the container and fried the antenna dish.”

“Is there a spare?” Skyler asked. “Wait, don’t answer. You wouldn’t be here if there was.”

Karl took a noisy slurp at his own drink. “I was thinking, maybe you and the others could bring back a larger dish, more powerful. We’ve got plenty of surplus juice coming in from the campus thor, and it would give us a lot more bandwidth to Melville. Hell, we could even reach the farms or New Anchor without the relays.”

“Have one in mind, or are we supposed to track one down?”

In answer Karl slipped a slate from his inner jacket pocket and handed it across. The thin black tablet’s screen came to life as soon as Skyler’s thumb brushed its surface.

“Those boys from Eden have started an effort to do a photo survey of the city, so we can ‘scout’ from the comfort of the comm room.”

“Smart,” Skyler said. An image appeared on the screen of Belém’s skyline, taken from the eastern slums somewhere north of the Elevator base. Karl had dropped a marker on one office building’s rooftop. It appeared to be the largest building in Belém, with a logo of PGF marking its side. Skyler zoomed in. As he did, he realized the genius of a photo survey. The image was fantastically high resolution and even had illusory depth to it. Skyler tracked in until he looked at a single window on the building’s top floor, and still he could make out small details. This one image of the city alone could be studied and marked up for potential scavenging all without leaving the safety of home. “Very smart.”

He panned the image until he found Karl’s marker again. The notation pointed to a white dish-and-antenna assembly on the roof.

“It’s about a meter tall,” Karl said. “Compact but heavy. I suspect you’ll need bolt cutters or even a torch.”

“Rain has hammered that thing for five years,” Skyler noted. He usually eschewed electronics that he didn’t find indoors. “It might not even work.”

“Hydrophobic coating. I’ve seen that model before. Expensive as hell, but it’ll last ten wet seasons without batting an eye.”

Skyler zoomed in even farther, almost as impressed with the sharpness of the image as he was with the clean, white surfaces of the comm tower. Karl had it right; there wasn’t a sign of discoloration or rust anywhere on it.

The rest was details. By noon that day, Skyler and his crew were clanging up the steps of Belém’s largest building.
Darwin, Australia

10.NOV.2283

“IS HE IN?” Sam asked the stranger sitting outside Grillo’s Nightcliff office.

“No,” the woman said. She had frayed red hair and a narrow face laced with worry lines. Her gaze drifted to the parcel Samantha carried. “That for him?”

Sam looked down at the package tucked under her left arm. The plastic bag that covered the book had a visible coat of sandy dust on it, just like her clothing, skin, and hair.

“You can leave it with me,” the woman said.

“No,” Sam replied. “He asked me to bring it to him specifically. He was very clear on that.”

“Well, you’ll have to wait till Monday. He’s gone to Lyons, and tomorrow is the Holy Day.”

A shiver ran along Sam’s back at the mention of Grillo’s original base of operations, out on Darwin’s eastern edge just beyond the Maze. As far as she knew, Kelly lived there now, supposedly as a Jacobite nun called Sister Josephine.

“Thanks,” Sam said. She turned and walked out, the idea forming in her mind with each step down the long stairwell that would let her out of Nightcliff’s tower.

Outside a stiff breeze whipped light rain about. She tucked the parcel back under her combat vest and continued to walk. Halfway across the yard she caught a glimpse of the door that led to the cell block where she’d been held. She flirted with the idea of dropping in to see Vaughn, to apologize for using him. To make amends. And perhaps …

No. Another time. She had a small opportunity here to find out where Kelly was, to perhaps catch some additional small clue from her friend as to just what the hell she was doing.

Sam walked on. She slipped through the side door next to Nightcliff’s main gate with a polite wave to the guards, ignoring their suggestion that she wait for someone to escort her back. It was a halfhearted request, anyway, given the metamorphosis Darwin’s streets had experienced.

She followed the fortress wall, leaving Ryland Square to the east. The skyscrapers quickly gave way to smaller structures ranging from five to fifty stories high, pressed together as if they’d been through a trash compactor. Tight alleys wormed between the loosely defined blocks, plunging into darkness.

Sam picked one at random and ducked into the Maze. The light rain that had been swirling about her like a swarm of tiny translucent insects stopped almost instantly, replaced by eerie droplets that tumbled down from the endless balconies and awnings above. Day turned to twilight and then night in the span of five steps, as completely as if she’d stepped indoors. She glanced straight up, past the clotheslines and exposed pipes, past the buckets that captured water or served as toilets, past the occasional face in the darkness, watching her out of vigilance or, perhaps, boredom. Above it all she could just make out a crooked gray line that was the sky. Even if the sun had been out she doubted she could have used it to tell her direction. She’d have to rely on asking, but this didn’t concern her. She still wore her combat gear from the mission, and such garb made people wary even in a city as jaded as Darwin. Plus, her reputation among the Jacobites preceded her more and more these days. Grillo, it seemed, had put the word out that she was to be treated as a friend. A sneer-worthy heathen friend, yes, but still a friend.

She’d been through the Maze on foot only a few times before, but always with Skyler to lead the way. Things were different back then, dangerous in a different way. Swarms of people flowed through the twisting alleys like blood through arteries. Vendors and beggars alike shouted pleas for attention. Scrawny children dressed in rags would trail along behind them, gawking at their weapons, their combat gear, the sight of boots that didn’t have holes worn through.

None of that remained. The alleys were practically empty of people. She passed one old woman who lugged a burlap sack that reeked of mold. A few turns later she came across two children, six or seven years old, splashing back and forth through a puddle. Their laughter seemed completely alien in this place. When they saw Samantha, though, the kids ran off. One whistled, a long blast followed by a short. Not ten steps later Sam heard and then saw a street patrol approaching; five young men in thrown-together Jacobite robes. They were armed with faith, but since that would go only so far they also carried clubs of various shapes and sizes. One carried a lantern that gave off bright yellow light from an LED.

The tallest, armed with a baseball bat, jerked his head upward once. The simple motion asked, “Who the f*ck are you and what are you doing here?”

Sam was opening her mouth to explain when the light from the lantern illuminated her enough that recognition dawned on the leader’s face. His posture changed in an instant. “She’s okay,” the lanky youth said. “Ang mentioned her, one of Grillo’s.” His companions followed his lead and visibly relaxed.

“Which way to Lyons?” Sam asked, still grappling with the idea that Grillo had passed word down this far about her. Whatever he’d said, it didn’t appear to include detaining her if she was found wandering alone. She tapped the package under her arm in hopes it would imply she had a specific errand. The one with the lantern pointed in the direction they’d approached from. “Thanks,” she said.

“It’s a long way,” the leader said. “We’ll take you.”

“That’s all right,” Samantha said. “Stick to your duty.” She went for a tone that suggested she had some authority to tell them what to do, and it worked. The leader gave her a nod and continued down the winding street with only a single glance back.

Sam picked up her pace then. If word of her impromptu visit arrived ahead of her, she might not get the chance to learn anything useful. The narrow streets and crooked alleys began to blur together, and twice she found herself at a dead end, forced to double back and find another route. An old man with a bicycle-powered rickshaw gave her a lift past Rancid Creek in exchange for two of the candy bars she kept tucked in a pocket of her vest. Food bribes always worked best, she’d found. The threat of violence came in a close second.

He dropped her off just after sunset at the Maze’s eastern edge, a few blocks west of the stadium, waving his chocolate payment in victorious fashion as he pedaled away. He clearly thought he’d taken advantage of her, but after catching a whiff of Rancid Creek Sam felt the payment was well justified.

She skirted the stadium and the streets immediately surrounding where Jacobite street patrols swarmed like flies. Once in Lyons she relaxed. The streets were all but empty, the population sparse enough that she could leave the main roads anytime she saw someone coming from the other direction.

Grillo’s base of operations was a large campus of buildings that had once been Darwin’s hub for the medical profession, the crown jewel being an ultramodern hospital. How he’d managed to gain control over the area in the early days of SUBS Sam had no idea, but seeing him methodically dragging Darwin into line over the last several months made the conquest of a little office park like this seem entirely plausible.

The guards at the campus gate were seasoned, older. Three flashlights and a dot of red laser light all converged on her before she’d come within twenty meters of the entrance.

“Who goes?” one of them barked.

She held up a hand in a fruitless attempt to shield her eyes. “Sam Rinn. I run the old airport for Grillo.”

“And what are you doing all the way out here? He’s not expecting anyone.”

She held out the package under her arm, raising it up. “Package for him. He asked me to deliver it personally.” Not strictly true. Grillo had sent her on the personal errand two days ago. He’d said he wanted the book in his hands right away once she’d found it, and she figured this was a reasonable interpretation.

One of the four guards came forward and put out his hand. When Sam didn’t move he beckoned with his fingers.

“He said for me to deliver it to him personally.”

“I just want to make sure it’s not a bomb or something.”

Sam held it out so he could study the cover. He leaned in, read the handwritten words there, and glanced back up. “No shit?”

Sam shrugged. “The real deal.”

The sod actually licked his lips, and read the words again.

THE TESTAMENT OF THE LADDER

Being the word of God

Transcribed verbatim in faith and obedience

by Sister Annabelle Katherine Haley

Perth, Australia, 2268

The guard fingered a cross-and-ladder trinket that hung around his neck on a gaudy gold chain. “Blimey. Right, then. In you go.”

Sam tucked the book back under her arm and followed him to the gate. He twirled one finger in the air, a signal to open the gate, and then waved her through.

“Thanks,” Sam said.

“Uh, the gun stays here.” He nodded toward her rifle.

Sam slipped it off her shoulder and handed it to him, then turned and walked down the drive into the heart of the campus. She could hear the guards talking among themselves. From the sound of it, one of them spoke into a handheld. A response came back a few seconds later, too muffled for Sam to make out exactly. She walked faster.

“Oy!” the guard shouted.