Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

  “Thanks, Talia.”

  She straightened abruptly and forced a brighter tone of voice.

  “So, what do you need me to do?”

  Knile took another bite. “I need a way into the Reach. I need to get in there today.” He nodded to himself. “Yeah, has to be today if I’m going to make it up by tomorrow night.”

  She gave him a crooked smile. “Something tells me you’re not here to ask for a dirigible.”

  “Not exactly. I was hoping you’d be able to give me some advice. Figured you’d be aware of any changes here in Link.”

  “Glad to know I’m good for something.” Talia considered. “Maybe Grove is the best bet.”

  “Grove? Do we still have friends there?”

  “Giroux is still in charge, last I checked. If you’re lucky, he might take pity on you. I’m not exactly sure how you’re going to play it out once you get into Grove, though.”

  “I don’t know either. I’m making this up as I go along.” Knile paused. “What about Roman? Is he still there? Is he doing okay?”

  “I don’t know,” Talia said, flashing him a guilty look. “I haven’t been back to see him.”

  “Really?”

  “What? Have you?” Talia said vehemently. “Don’t judge me like that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Knile said. “I didn’t mean it that way.”

  Talia flicked her hair in annoyance. “Anyway. What happens when you get inside the Reach? There’s security all over the place. You don’t think they’d have forgotten you by now, do you?”

  Knile laughed. “No, I doubt they’ve forgotten me, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to catch me. I spent years mapping out the Reach. Years. It can’t have changed that much.”

  She leaned back on the counter. “This all seems real sudden, Knile. It doesn’t seem like you.”

  “Passkeys aren’t handed out like candy, Talia. This is an opportunity that’s too good to refuse.” He moved over to the small, grimy window and looked out into the street. “Besides, what am I going to do? Head back out to the lowlands while I wait to die a slow and painful death? No, I don’t think so. I’m going to give it one last shot. If I fail, so be it. At least I’ll die knowing I tried.”

  Talia moved over next to him. “Now you sound just like someone in one of those dirigibles, floating on your way to the Reach on a wing and a prayer. Not such a crazy idea after all, is it?”

  He smiled back at her. “I guess not.”

  She moved away and began to gather some items from around the room – a hooded jacket that was slung over a chair, a respirator from a bench, a pair of sunglasses and a backpack.

  “We’d best get moving,” she said, handing him the sunglasses. “Unless you want to reconsider this crazy scheme? You could probably lay low here if you wanted to. Inspections aren’t as common as they used to be.”

  “Thanks for the offer,” Knile said, “but I need to do this.” He dipped the flask under the water filtration unit on the bench and gave himself a refill. “I need to try.”

  “Okay, then.” She donned the jacket and fixed the respirator to her face. Knile followed suit and eased his own respirators back in place.

  “You got any other gear?” she said, her voice tinny through the respirator.

  “Nope, this is it. Travelling light.”

  The corners of her eyes crinkled as she smiled. “Good old Knile. Let’s go.”

  6

  There were more people moving about the streets now, and Talia and Knile wove their way quickly between them. Heads bowed and postures slouched and defeated, they blended in perfectly with the rest of them. From the corner of his eye Knile watched the passers-by carefully, expecting to see someone he recognised and who recognised him in return, someone who might inadvertently raise the alarm with a loud or over-exuberant greeting, but it didn’t happen. Those who passed seemed only intent on the street before them, their eyes dull white patches on otherwise grimy and blackened countenances.

  “Doesn’t anyone take baths anymore?” Knile muttered to himself.

  “Not much,” Talia said, surprising him with a reply to his flippant remark. “Water filtration units are starting to run in short supply. No more parts coming from off-world.”

  “What about local manufacture?”

  “Death traps,” Talia said disdainfully. “QA just isn’t there. They’re shoddy as hell. Most of the toxins are still in the water after processing. It’s not much different to just standing out in a storm and letting raindrops fall in your mouth. Poison.”

  “Maybe there’s a marketing opportunity there. Surely there’s demand for clean water.”

  “There’s a few locals still putting together decent units. Not many, though. You really have to know who to deal with.” She shrugged. “Anyway, bath time is a luxury that most people just can’t afford anymore.”

  “It’s no wonder this place stinks.”

  Talia laughed. “And you had five-star spa treatments out in the lowlands, right? Or do people out there not stink?”

  “They stink,” Knile admitted. “Maybe it’s just because there’s less of them and I didn’t notice it so much.”

  He raised his face and looked toward the sky. The pollution today seemed to be creating accentuated patches of colour in the atmosphere – deep reds toward the horizon, then violet and mustard, fading toward pale blue nearer the zenith. Knile shuddered to think of the sort of chemical cocktail that must be floating around up there to cause such a thing.

  “Down here,” Talia suggested, grabbing his elbow and directing him into a narrow alleyway, away from the main thoroughfare.

  “Hey, I’m not completely lost,” Knile said, wriggling free of her grasp. “I spent a lot of years here, too, remember?”

  “Oh, really? So where to from here to reach Grove?”

  “Left, down Norman, turn at the old fire station–”

  “Nope. It’s gone.”

  “The fire station?”

  “Yeah, it got knocked down. The Enforcers busted a smuggling racket that was running out of there. Tore half the building apart in the fight. It was condemned.”

  “Damn,” Knile said. “I thought that thing would stand there forever.”

  “Me too.” She raised her eyebrows. “Remember that time we had to hide in there?”

  “Of course I remember. That was the most boring three hours of my life.”

  “Well, it was either that, or head back outside into the waiting hands of the Enforcers who were looking for us.”

  “Yeah, and that was your fault,” Knile said good-naturedly.

  “Mine?” Talia said with mock indignation. “Why?”

  “Because you were the one who stole that hub processor.”

  “Bullshit,” she said, laughing and giving him a punch on the arm. “You stole it right out of the fingers of that dealer and threw it at me. What was I supposed to do? Say sorry?”

  “Maybe. But you ran instead.”

  “I was just trying to keep up with you, Knile.”

  “And whose idea was it to head into the fire station?” Knile said. “Not mine.”

  “I’ll take credit for that,” Talia said. “And it was the only thing that saved our hides.”

  The alleyway ended and they turned into the next street. Three men were pulling a load of scrap metal in a trailer here, grunting and straining at the thick ropes slung over their shoulders.

  “They were good times,” Talia said wistfully, glancing over at Knile.

  “Those days were a lot less complicated, all right,” Knile admitted.

  “And then you started to dream big,” she teased. “I didn’t see much of you after that.”

  Knile shrugged. “I had a lot on my plate. I guess I lost touch with a lot of folk.”

  “And then Mianda came along,” Talia said, attempting to sustain the playful mood, but she couldn’t quite keep the derision out of her voice.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Tal
ia waved at him. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “No, tell me.”

  She moved out the way of a group of workers coming in the opposite direction, nudging Knile aside with her shoulder.

  “Well, your priorities seemed to change once Mianda came on the scene. You became obsessed with the Reach and with her–”

  “How else was I going to get out? I had to learn everything about the Reach if I was going to find my way through it. I had to devote myself to understanding every part of it.”

  “It’s fine, forget about it,” Talia said.

  Knile scowled. “If there’s something that’s–”

  At that moment there was a tremendous noise, a booming klaxon that rang out from the Reach like a hundred fog horns in unison, loud enough to make the ground vibrate. Knile looked, and high up the mountainous structure he could see tiny specks scattering, birds disturbed from their roosts and taking flight. They wheeled past the dirigibles that slowly drifted toward the Reach far above.

  “Another day begins,” Knile said when the clamour had died down.

  “The gates are open,” Talia said. “Are you sure you don’t want to just head straight there and march in?”

  Knile grinned. “Maybe I’ll try that if things don’t work out over at Grove.”

  They entered a narrow section of road where the buildings and walls pressed in closer from the sides. Merchants busied themselves around the entrances to their stores, arranging items for display and sweeping away muck that had accumulated around the doors and windows. One of them paused as Knile and Talia passed, taking a long draw on a rollie and belching out a lungful of smoke before replacing his respirator and returning to his business.

  “That old guy who used to sell whiskey in old jam jars, is he still around?” Knile said. “That stuff was pretty potent–”

  Talia stiffened at his side and clutched at his arm, and, curious, Knile followed her gaze. Only a few paces ahead, a cluster of Enforcers were spilling out of a bakery, shoving pastries and chunks of bread under their respirators and laughing coarsely over some private joke. Absorbed in their conversation, the Enforcers hadn’t yet spotted Talia and Knile.

  Talia acted swiftly, shoving her weight against Knile and manhandling him to the side of the road, where a crumbling outcropping of brickwork afforded them meagre concealment from the Enforcers’ view.

  “Shut up and stay still,” Talia hissed.

  The Enforcers made their way past, and Talia abruptly affected a fake laugh, flicking her hair extravagantly before pressing her body firmly up against Knile. A couple of the Enforcers looked their way, but their attention was firmly fixed upon the curves of Talia’s hips and buttocks as she giggled playfully and ran a hand through Knile’s hair. They made a couple of lascivious comments to each other as they passed, laughing, but never once glanced at Knile’s face.

  Knile watched them disappearing up the street from the corner of his eye, then allowed his body to relax. Talia made no attempt to move away, and as he looked back at her she pressed even closer, her body warm and firm against his.

  She unclipped her respirator and nudged it out of the way. “Take me with you, Knile,” she said breathlessly. “I don’t want to stay here any longer.”

  Knile looked into her eyes, seeing a vulnerability there that was very foreign to Talia.

  “Uh… what are you talking about, Talia? What’s happened?”

  “Nothing’s happened,” she said, placing a hand affectionately behind his neck. “I just don’t want to be left here alone.”

  Knile reached up and eased her away. “Talia, I can’t do that. You know it as well as I do.”

  Disappointment flickered across her face, a brief look of despair that was concealed by her respirator being clipped back in place. She glared at Knile as if he had done her a great injustice and shook her head.

  “I should have known,” she muttered. “Of course you can’t do it. But you’d have done it for Mianda.”

  She began to stalk away up the road and Knile chased after her.

  “What are you talking about? What’s gotten into you, Talia?”

  “Oh, nothing, Knile. I’m really just thrilled to be stranded here in this little slice of hell while the world slowly dies. It’s fine.”

  “I can’t take you with me. There’s no possible way I can do that, and this has nothing to do with Mianda.”

  “Oh really? I seem to remember you going to great lengths to help her out. Seems like you’re happy to help when it suits.”

  He caught up to her but had to take long strides to keep pace.

  “Those were completely different circumstances,” Knile said. “I planned that for almost two years. Two years. Do you know how many people I had to pay, how many doors I had to open to make it all work?”

  “Forget about it.”

  “And this time, I’ve got less than forty-eight hours,” he went on. He checked his watch. “In fact, it’s barely thirty-six hours, now. How am I supposed to sort everything out in that much time?”

  “I said forget about it,” Talia said, raising her voice. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “And besides, I didn’t end up getting Mianda out, did I? Even after everything I did, after all that preparation and planning, I couldn’t get it done. I couldn’t anticipate everything that was going to happen up there.”

  “A tragic story,” Talia said unsympathetically. “I feel for you.”

  “Talia–”

  “Look,” she said, stopping suddenly and slapping her palm into Knile’s chest to halt his progress. “I had a moment back there, okay? I wasn’t thinking. I know you can’t get me out. Shit, you’ll be lucky to get yourself out, from what you’ve told me.”

  “Agreed.”

  “After you’re safely at Grove, I’ll go back to what I was doing before, the same thing I’ve been doing for… for as long as I can remember. I’ve never asked for help before now, and this is why.” She held up her hands uselessly. “It’s like we always used to say to each other, Knile. We’re all in this alone.”

  Knile nodded sadly. “I guess we are.”

  He pushed back the sense of sorrow he felt looking at her. It was true. He couldn’t help her. If he was going to get off this Earth, he was going to have to stay focussed. There would be more just like her, begging him for help or trying to take what was his. He needed to be hard and uncompromising, resolute, or he wouldn’t make it. There was no other way.

  “In case you’ve forgotten,” Talia went on, “Grove is not far away. We’ll be there in a few minutes if we don’t stop to bicker like a couple of old women.”

  Knile gave her a grin. “But I’ve had no one to bicker with for years. I’ve missed it.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Get a move on, turkey.”

  Knile began to pace again, and in the distance he could already see the domed roof of Grove shining in the morning light.

  7

  From the outside Grove was like a glistening seashell, its exterior pearlescent in the sunlight. It stood apart from the buildings around it, occupying a broad tract of open land that had been carved out of an old neighbourhood many years ago. Knile felt a moment of nostalgia as he looked upon it, remembering all of the time he had spent here.

  This had always been one of the busiest places in the city, and today was no exception. Workers hustled around the place carrying loads of soil in wheelbarrows, nets, hoses and other implements. There was also a multitude of armed men and women, since Grove employed its own security personnel, and these patrolled the outer edge of the dome in dusty green uniforms, rifles at the ready.

  Grove was in fact a series of interconnecting structures rather than one large dome. It had grown over the years and been continuously expanded, with newer curved enclosures built around the exterior and then connected internally. There was one large air intake at the top of the central dome, through which air was sucked and filtered and then distributed to other sections of the structure.
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  There was also only one entrance, and it was heavily guarded. Fortunately for Knile there were no Enforcers about. They were not welcome here.

  “You got a plan for this?” Knile said as they approached the entrance.

  “I figured you’d use your body odour to paralyse security, and then we’d walk straight through,” Talia said.

  “Hey, I had a bath last June for your information.”

  There were two clusters of guards, one stopping everyone who tried to enter Grove and the other searching those who exited the enclosure. Some of the workers breezed through, obviously well known to the guards, but others were given a more rigorous interrogation. The examinations slowed the procession of visitors considerably, and it was several minutes before Knile and Talia reached the head of the line.

  “Permits,” one of the guards demanded gruffly, holding out a gloved hand.

  Knile and Talia glanced at each other. “We don’t have any,” Talia said.

  “Then what’s your business here?” he said, eyeing them both suspiciously.

  “We need to talk to Giroux,” Talia said.

  “Don’t waste my time,” the guard responded. “Shove off.”

  “Wait a minute,” Knile said. “We’re old friends. You can ask him yourself.”

  “I’ll make sure to do that,” the guard drawled, “the very next time I sit down to drink tea with him at our daily chit-chat. Now unless you work here or you have official business inside, I suggest you take a hike.”

  “Forget about it,” Talia said, shaking her head at Knile. “We aren’t getting anywhere here.”

  “So what do we do? Where to from here?”

  “Anywhere that’s out of my face,” the guard growled, leaning in at them. “Move aside.”

  “Back off!” Talia snapped. “We’re going, okay? Just–”

  At that moment a pair of meaty hands clamped down on both of their shoulders, and Knile and Talia flinched. Knile turned and saw the rotund face of a large woman behind them.

  “Look who we have here!” she said cheerily.

  “Hildi,” Knile said, recognising her instantly. He was about to say more when the woman’s arms slipped around his and Talia’s necks and she drew them in for a rough hug.