Connected Infection

44. Gobi - Chapter 29.1

29

17:01 (UTC+8)

Raven and Popescu stood side by side, shielding their eyes from the sun, watching the attempts of the Chinese Air Force to drive a hole in the seething mass of flies around the open reactor chamber.

'Maybe I was a little optimistic,' Popescu said, as explosion after explosion pocked the sky.

Raven nodded. 'Imagine even trying to coordinate it without comms,' he said. 'The pilots can't read semaphore, and if they could they'd probably crash trying.'

More jets screamed overhead, replacing those that had expended their payloads. Raven didn't expect them to have greater luck.

'You know what I wish?' Popescu said.

'No. What?'

'I wish it were dark. Night, or maybe late evening.' She waved a hand across the scene before them. 'The missiles wouldn't leave smoke marks in the air. The fireballs wouldn't be so dim and orange against the sky.'

Raven nodded, and they watched in silence for a few moments more. Then Popescu spoke again.

'Can you appreciate beauty, Raven?' she asked.

He glanced at her. 'Is that a loaded question?'

She sighed. 'Nevermind.'

Raven looked back at the scintillating vortex of flies. Suddenly it seemed to flex, blooming outward away from the reactor, and up, higher and higher into the sky until it looked like the ghostly root of an insubstantial space elevator.

And then the alien intelligence's rocket launched. It popped out of the remains of the reactor vent building and shot upwards, so high and so fast that Raven lost sight of it until he craned his neck right back, and by then it was just a dwindling speck trailed by the enormous arrow of its exhaust.

'Fuck me,' Raven said, marvelling at the acceleration. 'I hope nothing organic tried to sneak on board that thing.'

He watched it for a few seconds, until the tip of the exhaust plume began to fade out beyond the limits of his vision, the shining speck of the rocket itself long gone.

'It's over,' Popescu said. 'Nothing we have is going to catch that.'

'No.'

And then the sky before them flashed like sheet lightening, punctured by millions of pinpricks of light as every one of the flies detonated simultaneously.

'Wow,' Popescu gasped.

A rolling peal of thunder rippled over them, booming and echoing from the surrounding terrain.

Raven waited for the rumbles to die away, and then turned to his partner. 'Right,' he said. 'Let's go see what's left in that place.'

Popescu shrugged. 'I guess there isn't any other shade around here.'

'Ow,' said a voice behind them. 'Hey... Ow. Ow!'

Raven looked back to see Teahnox writhing on the dusty ground, struggling perplexedly at his bonds.

'Hey! What's going on? Why am I tied up?'

'Because you've been a very naughty boy,' Raven said.

The GASP employee stared at him. 'Ah, shit,' he said. 'I thought this was just a dream.'

Raven grinned. The other captive Hos also seemed to have been released by the entity, and were starting to complain too – only a little less vocally than Teahnox, doing so down the barrels of the Mongolian army's guns.

Popescu caught the attention of one of the officers, who barely noticed her at first, because a radio on his belt squawked and caused him to exclaim with surprise. She signalled him to attend to Teahnox, and then turned to Raven.

'Radio's back. Shall we?' she said.

They looked towards the remains of the GASP hub, now devastated by the fury of the rocket's launch, and at all the baking weapon-scarred earth that separated them from it.

'I wonder if Mendoza will catch up with another Jeep,' Raven mused.

'Probably. He's a good man.'

'We'll see.'

They set off together, across the desert towards the shattered ruins of humanity's greatest achievement, and after only a couple of minutes - just as Raven was wondering whether Popescu would object if he sent her back for more water - they heard the sound of tyres behind them.