The Mirrored Heavens Read Online Free PDF

should be.”
    “Maybe you don’t know shit about the biggest hedgehog of them all. Room with a view. They say the Jaguars can’t get within a kilometer of the basement.”
    “A kilometer’s a pretty specific number,” replies the Operative. “Particularly when it involves classified operations. You’re merchant marine. Where are you getting all this from?”
    “Information’s harder to lock down in space.”
    “Give me another example.”
    “How about you give me an example?”
    “Such as?”
    “What’s your business on the Moon?”
    The Operative laughs. “Who says I have business on the Moon?”
    “That’s where we’re supposed to drop you, isn’t it?”
    “Maybe that’s just my transfer point.”
    “And maybe it’s not. Come on, man. We’ve got three days together.”
    “So?”
    “So indulge me. It’s not like I expect you to tell me the truth .”
    “Then what the hell do you expect?” asks the Operative.
    “How about a good story?”
    “Even if it’s a lie?”
    “Remember what I said about killing time?”
    “I thought you said this wasn’t a social call.”
    “So I’m mixing business with pleasure.”
    “So put the Elevator back on that screen.”
    “I never took it off,” the pilot says.
    “Where is it?”
    “Lower right-right.”
    “Put it at the center.”
    “Sure thing.”
    It’s the surest thing there is. It’s scarcely two hundred klicks distant. It’s practically a drive-by. Yet it still requires magnification to make out the workers on its side—still requires magnification to discern how they’ve jury-rigged whole series of pulleys to haul themselves along it while they lay down the maglev tracks along which the freight will someday flow. The Operative lets his gaze stray down toward the Elevator’s extremity at Nadir Station some hundred klicks below. Below that’s only atmosphere.
    “Am I ever going to get to see it out that window?” he asks.
    “You could if the window weren’t facing Earth.”
    “I can see it’s facing Earth. What I’m asking is, is that going to change soon.”
    “Man’s in luck. When we prime the burn we’ll shift our angle. You should get yourself a good view then.”
    “Excellent.”
    “So what’s going down on the Moon?”
    But the Operative’s just noticed something going down on the screens.

    I ’m an envoy,” says Morat.
    “I’d guessed as much,” replies Haskell.
    “I’m an envoy,” he repeats, as though her words compel reiteration. “I report directly to the handlers.”
    “How direct can it be when you never see them either?”
    “As direct as it needs to be for me to give you your final orders. You’ve been primed across your dreams. You face me in the flesh for activation.”
    “Tell me what’s going on.”
    “You already know what’s going on,” he says. “We’re getting hammered.”
    “By the Latins.”
    “By the Jaguars. The Latins didn’t mean shit until the Jags gave them a voice. Five years ago, these cities were virtually pacified. Everything was locked down. Look at them now. The governments we bought and paid for don’t dare to go inside. The militias are like iron filings over which a magnet’s passing. They’re focused like they’ve never been before.”
    “Which is why I’m here,” says Haskell.
    “Which is why you’re here.” Morat smiles without warmth. “This city is where they’re making their latest push. It started ten days back. Now it’s as bad as I’ve ever seen it. I tell you, Claire—we either find a way to break them, or else one of these days it’s going to be the other way. And if we’re going to win this, it’s going to have to be CounterIntelligence Command that gets in there and does it. The other Commands won’t. Army’s a hollow shell. Space rides high and disdains dirt. Info avoids the human touch. Navy steers clear of anything that isn’t ocean. The Praetorians have their hands full safeguarding the Throne. It’s going to have to be