Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

  “No, wait, buddy! I’ve got you a ticket!”

  Alton stiffened. “You what?”

  “I’ve got a passkey lined up for you. For real, this time.”

  “Fallon, this had better not be some misguided attempt at humour.”

  “No, man! It’s not! It’s legit.” There was a pause. “Uh, well, the passkey doesn’t have your name on it or anything. That’s not within my power.” He chuckled. “But the ticket is real and it’s up for grabs.”

  “Very well, you have my interest.”

  “Good, good. First up, though, Mr. Wilt, I’m gonna need to make sure we’ve got an agreement here. The deal–”

  “Yes, yes,” Alton snapped. “You’ll be sent the creds. The deal stands. Now give me the details.”

  “Well, all right, let me see here.” There was a scratching noise as Fallon fiddled with his holophone, and then a few moments later a face appeared on Alton’s screen, a dark-haired man with a narrow jaw and a hard edge to his gaze. “That’s him.”

  “And you’re sure this passkey isn’t a fake?” Alton demanded.

  “For sure. Verified official. But he’s on his way right now. You’re gonna have to get moving.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “Knile. Knile Oberend.”

  “And the time of departure?”

  “Sending it through now. But listen, Mr. Wilt, this guy is wanted by the Enforcers. He’s not going to be headed up the main elevators. He’s going to have to find another way up through the Atrium, so you might have your work cut out to find him.”

  Alton waited until the transfer was complete. “I can handle that. Thank you. We’re done here.”

  “Hey, man, what about my creds–”

  Alton disconnected the call and then immediately dialled another number. It picked up almost immediately.

  “I need you,” was all Alton said, and then he hung up.

  He began cleaning up the room, replacing blankets and pillows on the bed, picking up a glass that had fallen on the floor. He slipped into his shoes. As he passed the bathroom mirror he gave himself a quick inspection, flattening his hair on one side.

  The door of the apartment opened and a man entered. He was bald and muscular and had a tattoo of a cog on the side of his head just above his ear.

  “Boss,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Tucker, we have a journey ahead of us,” Alton said, picking up a fresh shirt and sliding it over his shoulders. “There’s a passkey to be acquired. Make the transfer to Fallon, and then get what you need and meet me downstairs in five minutes.”

  “I like the sound of this.” Tucker grinned, and then he turned to leave.

  “Tucker,” Alton said, and the bald man paused. “Are you sure you can hack one of these things?”

  Tucker nodded. “You can count on me, boss. I’ll get it done.”

  Out on the balcony, Alton made one last sweep to make sure he hadn’t left anything behind. He knew that, one way or another, he would not be coming back here. This life that he’d created was ending the minute he stepped outside the door.

  That brought a smile to his face.

  He turned his face to the Reach and began his ritual one last time, his mind creating that familiar fantasy, and this time he believed in it with all his heart.

  5

  Knile moved down the street, the asphalt glistening and wet in the first light of day. Like much of Link, the architecture here was utilitarian, squat grey buildings bunched together in close proximity as they crowded against the thoroughfare. Folk were beginning to emerge from their homes and move about now, hurrying away on their errands. They paid Knile no mind as they went.

  At the side of the road an old man was setting up a cart, spacing out a motley assortment of sickly looking vegetables for display. As Knile approached he turned and lifted a specimen in each hand and stared at Knile expectantly.

  Knile stopped, famished, but couldn’t picture himself eating what the man offered. The vegetables might have been sweet potato, he guessed, but they were an unappetising shade of green, covered in black pockmarks.

  “Fresh,” the man said feebly, hoisting the vegetables higher for Knile to see. He was dressed in little more than rags, and his tangled grey beard was matted with muck. He wasn’t wearing a respirator, and there were dark sooty lines under his nose.

  Knile leaned forward. “Did you even use filtrated water with these?” he said.

  “Fresh,” the man said again, oblivious.

  Knile just shook his head apologetically and kept moving. The man watched him leave, his arms sagging, and then he turned and bent to his cart as he continued his preparations for the day.

  Around the bend, Knile reached his destination. It was a carbon copy of most of the other dwellings in the street, an ugly box with tiny black windows, but Knile knew that this was the place. He remembered all the little things – the pattern of cracks in the driveway, the sag of the roof on one end, the old rusted chair on the porch. Those hadn’t changed.

  Knile trusted his memory. It had never let him down before.

  He moved quickly down the side of the house and out the back. There was a small yard here with a cheap plastic outdoor setting situated amongst clumps of desiccated grass, as well as a jumble of solar receptors fixed to stakes in the dirt. Knile crept to the back wall where a narrow window led to the basement. He peered inside, but it was too dark to see what lay within.

  Taking out his tools, he was able to pry at the edges of the window, and in moments he had disengaged the lock. He eased it open and then slid through and into the basement.

  Inside it was cool and dank. The room was lit from above by a timid yellow lightbulb, and there were shelves cluttered with all kinds of trinkets – disassembled respirators, water purifier parts, lengths of copper pipe, scissors and rolls of fabric, among others. There was a workbench in the middle of the room, on which was strewn more fabric and some heavy-duty needles and thread.

  There was noise in the house above, and Knile edged behind a basket of discarded cloth, lowering himself close to the floor and tucking up his legs. As he watched, the door at the top of the stairs opened and a young woman descended, tucking her dark blond hair behind her ears and taking a pencil from between her teeth as she went. She glanced at one of the shelves, examining a piece of pipe, before turning her attention to the fabric on the table, her back to Knile.

  Taking the pencil, she began to draw a line across the fabric, making smooth and well-practised strokes. Knile observed her for several minutes as she went about her business, and then, confident that she was alone, eased the basket aside.

  “Talia,” he said.

  The woman stiffened and dropped the pencil, but she did not cry out or gasp. She made no attempt to look at him.

  “Knile Oberend,” she said, and he could hear a hint of breathlessness in her voice that she’d tried to suppress. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  Knile got to his feet and moved into the light. “Not surprised to see me?”

  Talia turned to look at him. “I don’t know if anything about you surprises me anymore.” She dropped her face back to her work, picking up the pencil again. “Although, I have to admit that I thought you were dead. I should have known better.”

  “Disappointed that I’m not?”

  She smirked. “Don’t flatter yourself. I have a lot more interesting things to worry about.”

  “Sure.” Knile drew the respirators from his nostrils and took in a deep breath. “Air in here isn’t too bad.”

  “Yeah. I still change the filters on the intake nice and regular. Keeps the nasties out.” She indicated to his respirators. “What’s with those? Why don’t you have something that covers your mouth?”

  Knile turned them over in his hand. “These are pretty common out in the lowlands. They don’t get in the way as much. You just have to remember not to breathe through your cake hole.”

  “Not easy for the rednecks out there, I bet.�
�

  Knile smirked and pointed a thumb over his shoulder. “I see the solar grid I set up for you is still bringing in the juice.”

  “Well, you had to do at least one thing useful in your life.” She straightened and tapped the pencil thoughtfully on her fingers. “It’s not working as well as it used to, though. Smog’s getting worse, I guess.”

  “Have you gone and cleaned them lately? There’s a film that builds up if you–”

  “Yes, I know that,” she snapped. “I’m not a complete idiot.”

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  She picked up the scissors and began to cut along the pencil lines with fluid strokes.

  “Yeah, okay. So what are you doing here, Knile?”

  “I got a call to come back. Something important.”

  “By who?”

  “Fallon.”

  Her eyes widened. “Fallon? You still trust that sack of shit?”

  “His information is always good. He hasn’t let me down in the past. I know he’s not exactly ethical in all of his dealings–”

  “Well, that’s a nice way to put it.”

  “–but at least if he tells me something, I know there’s some truth in it.”

  “So where the hell have you been all this time?”

  “The lowlands.”

  She gave him an incredulous look. “That doesn’t sound like your kind of place.”

  “Well, I couldn’t stay here. Half the damn city was looking for me. Where else was I supposed to go?”

  “Surely there was somewhere you could lie low in Link.”

  Knile shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “Or maybe there was some other reason you didn’t want to hang around.”

  They stared at each other, and eventually Knile smiled thinly.

  “It’s not exactly paradise here.”

  “Better than the lowlands.” When he offered no response she decided to let it go. “So what were you doing out there? You become a wind farmer or something?” she said with a grin.

  “Nah. I just went from place to place, picking up work wherever I could. Getting by.”

  Talia grew serious. “What’s it like out there?”

  Knile brushed his fingers along the pale fabric. “Like here, but worse. They’re doing it tough. Even the larger communities have fractured. There’s just little clusters of people now, maybe ten or twenty in one place. No more than that.”

  “Are they growing much food?”

  “Nope. In fact, they’re slowly starving themselves out of existence. A lot of them have even given up on respirators, and they’re not bothering to purify the water anymore.”

  “What? Why on earth would they do that?”

  “They just don’t have the gear. It’s all worn out or fallen apart, and they can’t replace it.” Knile’s eyes met hers. “They’re poisoning themselves.”

  “God,” Talia said soberly. “That’s awful.”

  Knile thought of the old man out on the street with his cart of putrid produce.

  “It’s starting to happen here, too, isn’t it?”

  Talia looked away. “In places.”

  “So it’s only a matter of time, now.”

  Talia frowned. “It’s been only a matter of time for about three generations now, Knile. Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.”

  “Maybe I did, but not this soon.”

  “Sooner, later, who cares?” Talia said. “We’re all stuck here, right?” She glanced at him curiously. “We’re all in the same predicament.”

  “Maybe.”

  She eyed him suspiciously and then moved around the edge of the table toward him.

  “What’s got you looking so smug?”

  “Huh?”

  “What was it that made you come back here?”

  Knile paused, unsure of how to phrase his response. “I got a ticket out.”

  Talia looked at him blankly. “Out where?”

  He gestured vaguely upward. “Out. Through the Reach. There’s a passkey with my name on it. I’m leaving.”

  Talia laughed out loud, shaking her head at him derisively. “You’re getting out.” Her voice was filled with sarcasm. “Really? And Fallon told you that?”

  “It’s real, Talia.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “It’s real. I checked the message myself.”

  She placed a hand on her hip. “So let me get this straight. There’s an actual legit passkey that’s been sent down from above. For you.”

  “Yes.”

  “That makes no sense, Knile. What are you thinking?”

  “Why doesn’t it make sense?”

  “Well, who the hell is your Sponsor, for a start? Who is it that likes you enough to put your name on a passkey?”

  “I don’t know that. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Of course it matters. You said yourself that half the city is looking for you. The Enforcers are looking for you. How do you know they didn’t set this up as some kind of trap?”

  “The Enforcers don’t control the passkeys,” Knile said. “They keep the law from the Atrium down. The railcar, the passkeys, and access off-world… that’s controlled by the Consortium. The Enforcers don’t have a say in it.”

  Talia snorted. “You believe what you want. Personally, I think you’re deluded.”

  “I’ll trust my own judgement.”

  “Yeah, well…” Talia rolled her eyes. “This coming from the guy who thinks it’s a good idea to spend his time wandering around the lowlands. You’ll forgive me if I’m a little sceptical about this.”

  “Well, not all of us can spend our time making society a better place, can we?”

  Talia glared at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Look at you,” Knile said, sweeping his hand across the table. “Still in the dirigible-building business, huh?”

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “So you’re effectively taking people’s life savings in exchange for the false promise of freedom.”

  “That’s bullshit, Knile. People buy dirigibles because that’s the quickest way out of this city. The quickest way to someplace better.”

  “Yeah? Don’t you find it odd that no one ever leaves the city in a dirigible? All they ever do is hurl themselves at the Reach in the vain hope that they’ll make a landing up there somehow. They think that if they get past the security at ground level they’ll somehow make their way to the top. But we both know that doesn’t happen. We both know they all get shot down before they ever get close.”

  “Listen, I just help make these things, okay?” Talia said, irate. “I stitch and I sew and I cut, and then they take the parts away and attach all the other bits that make it work. After that, it’s not my business what people do with the dirigible. That’s up to them. If they want to try their luck over at the Reach, that’s their decision.”

  “Yeah. And you line your pockets in the meantime.”

  Talia’s mouth compressed into a firm line and she stepped aside, her arm indicating to the stairs.

  “You can leave any time. Nice seeing you again.”

  Knile rubbed a hand across his mouth, silently berating himself. He was out of line and he knew it. Talia didn’t deserve that kind of grief from anyone, least of all him.

  “Look, I’m sorry, Talia.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “I mean it. You got under my skin and I said something I shouldn’t have.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “You’re right. You’re not forcing anyone to buy the dirigibles. It’s their choice.”

  Her arm dropped and she looked at him dubiously.

  “Let’s cut to the chase, Knile. Why are you here?”

  “I need your help. But before that, I really need something else.”

  “What?”

  “Do you have anything to eat? I’m starving.”

  She relaxed a little. “I can probably spare you something. Follow me.”

  In the kitchen Talia leaned on the counter, watchi
ng him tear into a hunk of bread and a strip of beef jerky – in reality a protein bar derived from crickets, commonly referred to as a bug bar – in between gulps of water from an aluminium flask he’d taken from his hip. She wondered how long it had been since he had eaten. He was certainly leaner and more gaunt than the last time she had seen him. He’d evidently been doing it tough out in the lowlands.

  “This is good,” he said, his mouth full. “Real good. Thank you.”

  “It’s really nothing special, Knile. I guess when you’re starving, anything tastes good.”

  “I guess.” He fumbled at a pouch on his belt and produced a cred chip. “I can transfer you some cash for this–”

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “I don’t want your money.” She smiled sourly. “Besides, I’m living the highlife, don’t you know? I’m loaded from fleecing all of these rich people with my dirigible racket.”

  Knile smiled apologetically. “Go on. Rub it in.”

  Her expression turned serious. “You’re really going to go through with this, aren’t you?”

  He nodded. “Yeah. And I don’t have a lot of time. My ride is tomorrow night.”

  “What? That’s insane! How on earth are you going to make it all the way up the Reach by tomorrow?”

  “If anyone can do it, I can. I’ve done it before.”

  Talia grabbed another bug bar from a plastic container on the bench and walked over to Knile, holding it up for him.

  “What happened up there, Knile? Where’s Mianda?”

  Knile took the bar gratefully, but he paled visibly at the mention of that name.

  “I can’t talk about her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Bad memories. I don’t want to even think about it.”

  “Did she make it out?”

  “No.” Knile bit into the jerky, snapping half of its length off in one bite. “There was no way she could have.”

  “I’m sorry. You two seemed destined for better things.” Her voice softened. “You were meant for each other.”

  “Doesn’t matter now. Things didn’t go as planned, and that’s all I can say.”

  She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “Well, if you decide you want to talk about it, I’m here,” she said with sincerity.