Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(86)

Because Chloe had learned a lesson from mech-Daniel. Chloe recorded things. Things like Heron’s remote-rigging process. And she replicated things, too, all over this landmass, a flurry of self-recursion, learning, mastering command systems in the time it took a human person to blink. She was in satellites and live feeds and entertainment consoles and smartbombs. In helicopters and planes and landjets and drones. If somebody had a free-fae light full of nanites in their dining room or street-corner bodega, Chloe appropriated it and incorporated all those component pieces into herself. Her self grew. Every nano within her reach became part of her, became vengeance. In the skies above soft targets, her intercepts did not miss.

Chloe was out, a pervasive net of thou-shalt-not, standing between Zeke’s bombs and her people. Illegal, hysterical, call her whatever you wanted, nobody was sticking this genie back in a bottle.

No secrets. No lies.

Angela, Rafa, and Fez hurtled north, toward the Capitoline, and rioters in Atlanta, Chicago, Vancouver, and Veracruz celebrated the arrival of air support for their cause. Angela’s revolution had their backs, and that’s all the spark they needed. They stormed government buildings, demanding vote recounts, demanding to be seen. To be heard.

Charleston, Portland, Fairchild, and Beale came online, Chloe’s birds in the air, raining justice. Forcing this government to listen. To pause. Just fucking pause.

“Time consumes us all in fire,” Angela said to the camera. “El Presidente, I am coming for you. And I am the fire.”

Fez signaled cut. The lights dimmed, but slow.

She hadn’t slept in almost a full day, and her emotions had been frayed to begin with. But she didn’t have time to pause or rest. He’d heard her warning, Zeke had, and he’d not only thrown it back in her face, he’d upped the attacks, made them personal. He’d brought down the fucking Pentarc.

It hadn’t been her home, but it had been Kellen’s. And Kellen was as close to home as she’d ever get or ever want. She took attacks against him personally, because he represented everything good in her. She ached for him, couldn’t close her eyes without seeing his face in her memory, the stark horror he’d shown in the second he heard the news of his family.

She blinked, seeing the image on the backs of her eyelids, vid from a reconnaissance craft. Part of Northy still rose above the desert, but the other spires were simply gone, heaps of steaming, dust-shrouded bones.

“Do we have enough content?” she asked.

“Yes, we do. Now sit down, honey,” Rafa said, taking her hand and attempting to pull her to one of the bolted-down chairs. “You’ve had a really shitty day.”

“We have all had a shitty day,” she said. “Loop it. And let’s get to work.”

? ? ?

Never in all his years would Kellen have expected to wake up, rested but empty, staring into the face of Damon Vallejo, that old asshole himself.

It was a kindly face today, though, no malice writ there, and no danger. He’d been looking at something. A book? When he saw he was being watched, Vallejo folded it closed and placed it on his lap.

Kellen scrubbed a hand over his eyes, knuckling the sleep out. “Where we at?”

“In the air over Arizona. We should be touching down shortly. Your friend Garrett said to let you rest as long as you could.”

They’d boarded the spaceplane in Tampico, right after Angela had headed off to spark up her rebellion. Kellen couldn’t think how he’d been able to sleep. Dreamlessly, even. He wondered if Garrett or Chloe had altered the air mix in the plane. He wouldn’t fuss at them if they had. He was so often on the other side, but sometimes, it felt good to be cared for.

“Pentarc, it’s…any word?”

The old man looked down at the book. He stroked the frayed cloth binding.

Kellen sat up, grabbed for his com, and realized it wasn’t on his arm. Aw, fuck a monkey, man, he was naked. Or partway so. He’d had the forethought to pull the longjohns part of his dive suit on before climbing out of the sub, but the rest of the smartfabric hung loose around his waist. He fiddled with the flop of sleeve, found the pouch, found his com. “Yoink? What’s our status, girl?”

She didn’t reply through the com right away. Probably because she was loitering right next to his bunk. At the sound of her name, she leapt onto his lap, sat back on her haunches, and gazed up at him, serious as the business end of a cannon. “Awake is good. We are good. Coyotes are good. They call. Javelinas dig. We will be home soon.”

So no word from down below. And the wild things dug. Didn’t sound good.

He felt the plane beneath his feet, observed its familiar cramped quarters. He’d been sleeping back in the racks, bunks for folk who needed rest. A haven in the air.

Heron kept a footlocker here full of things he picked up, all over the world, always with his Mari in mind. Trinkets he’d stored up for years, just waiting to give her. Had he gotten a chance to?

God, please don’t end it like this.

His voice was far from steady when he asked, “We heard from Angela?”

Vallejo sighed. “Only every five seconds. Her face has been plastered on every channel I could find, all morning long. You were clever to get rest, but I really don’t know how she endures. Fine woman. Scary woman. If I were Zeke Medina today, I would be very, very concerned.”

“That’s my Angela,” Kellen said, but it sounded hollow, even to him.