“Oh, me too,” Knile said, moving in front of the boy and fumbling with the zipper on the wall. “I’ll go with you.”
“Whatever,” Roman said, ducking through with his load.
Knile held the opening for Talia and she gave him a disconcerted look, obviously not liking where this was going. Knile followed her through, and together they jogged to catch up to the boy, who was evidently not waiting around for them.
“So it looks like you’ve settled in here nicely,” Talia said.
“Yeah. Not that I had much choice, Talia,” Roman said. “Since you and the others dumped me and left.”
“Roman, I’m sorry about that,” Talia said. “Believe me, I am.”
Roman kept his eyes intent on the path before him.
“So sorry that you never even once came to visit me,” he said.
“Well, about that,” Knile began, but Roman cut him off.
“Hey, Tee, I’m on convoy today,” he called out loudly to another worker, an older man with a beard who was pruning a lemon tree nearby. “Do you need me to talk to that customs guy on Level Four?”
“I spoke to him last week,” the man called back. “He keeps screwing up the ammonium nitrate order. You can talk to him if you want, but…” He shrugged. “Probably won’t do any good.”
“I’ll have a word to him,” Roman called, and the man saluted him with his snips before returning to his work. Roman got moving again.
“Roman,” Knile went on, close on the boy’s heels, “I’ve been in a lot of trouble. I’m not welcome around here, and I haven’t shown my face for a long time. I’m sorry I didn’t try to contact you before now.”
“Yeah. I heard from someone that you were dead. And then, someone else said you got off-world.”
“Neither is true, as it turns out.”
They proceeded into the next enclosure, but Roman did not reduce his rapid pace, making no effort to continue the conversation.
“And I kinda got busy,” Talia said, attempting to fill the silence. “I know that sounds lame–”
“It is lame,” Roman said. “Whichever way you dress it up, both of you are lame.”
“Can’t say I don’t deserve that,” Knile said.
“Listen,” Roman said, “I’m grateful to you guys for what you did for me. You found me on the streets when I was a starving little kid with no one to look after me. You let me run with your gang and you showed me how to survive in the city. I’d probably be dead without you.”
“Roman–” Knile began, but the boy held up a hand to stall him.
“But you undid all of that when you dumped me here at Grove and left.” The anger in his eyes was now tinged with hurt. “I was scared and alone and I didn’t know anyone. How could you do that to me? I thought we were like family.”
“Roman, please,” Talia said, gripping his shoulder. “Listen to me. Our group was starting to fracture. It was drifting apart. Knile and Mianda were leaving and the others were gravitating toward different gangs. We couldn’t ensure your safety out there. Putting you inside Grove with Giroux and Hildi was the best way to protect you. This is a far better life in here than we could give you out on the streets.”
They reached the outer airlock and joined a group of others who were waiting to be let outside. Most of those assembled were busy fitting their respirators back onto their faces, and Roman, Talia and Knile did the same.
“That doesn’t explain why you never came to see me, Talia,” Roman said bitterly.
“I thought that if you saw me, you’d want to come home with me,” Talia said. “Back to that life outside. I didn’t want to drag you back there.”
“And did anyone ever ask what I wanted?” Roman said.
“I’m sorry,” Talia said softly.
“And if this is such a great life, why didn’t you come and work here as well?”
Knile looked at Talia, seeing the truth in her eyes. He knew that Talia could never work here, for the same reason that Knile himself couldn’t. Giroux didn’t pay his workers very much. Knile had always wondered about the reason why. He’d thought that perhaps Giroux had been amassing his own personal fortune all this time, but after today’s conversation he knew better. Giroux couldn’t afford to pay his workers well, not with all of his other expenses. To work at Grove meant a life of security and clean food, but it also meant a life with no hope of ever leaving Earth. It was a trade-off that neither Talia nor Knile were willing to accept. There was simply no way to make enough money to buy a Sponsor while working at Grove.
Knile had always believed that he and Talia were doing the right thing, the unselfish thing, by giving Roman a life of security within the walls of Grove. Now, seeing the hurt in the boy’s eyes, he wondered if perhaps the opposite were true.
Talia struggled to put it all into words. “I don’t know,” she said finally, but her voice was drowned out by the sound of the jets activating above as the airlock was purged.
When the procedure was complete, Roman wasted no time in stalking away, out into the sunlight with his basket clutched under his arm.
“Roman, wait,” Talia called.
She ran after him and caught up as he was searched by the guards. She removed her respirator in an attempt to kiss the boy goodbye, but Roman moved out of her grasp before she could do so. Talia stood watching numbly as he left, a look of desolation on her face. She stood like a statue as the guards conducted their search of her body. As they pushed her on her way she responded sluggishly, taking three stumbling steps before regaining her balance.
Knile followed, reaching her a few moments later as Roman disappeared in the crowd toward the convoy. By the look of the activity around it, time was up.
“Fuck this,” Talia said. There were tears in her eyes and a sob racked her body. “And fuck you for making me come back here,” she said angrily.
“Talia, please,” Knile said, but she turned her back on him and began to walk away.
“Leave me alone!” she said.
“Talia!” Knile called loudly. She faltered and then half turned back to look at him as if compelled to do so against her will. Knile gathered himself up. “After I’ve gotten off this rock, I’ll find a way to get you out. I promise.”
Talia smirked weakly at that, disbelieving, and the expression quickly melted away. Her eyes dropped to the ground and she drew the respirator back across her face, turning silently and walking away without another word.
9
Alec Duran looked out upon the city far below. It was so far down, so insignificant, that it looked little more than a puddle, a misshapen blotch of oil on the landscape that seethed in the early morning light. Buildings and streets and alleyways all formed together into a mesh, one feature as indistinguishable as the next. Further afield, the lowlands extended out toward the horizon in dismal shades of murky grey.
Even though there was more of the Reach above him than below, he still felt as though he were standing atop a mountain, looking down on an inconsequential world below. A long way away from its troubles and its complications.
Of course, that wasn’t strictly true. The Reach was still a part of the Earth, tethered below where the base of the giant structure met the land, the place where the city and its denizens pressed in like hungry maggots, unrelenting and insatiable as they searched for sustenance.
He felt sorry for them more often than not, those poor unfortunates in Link. They did not deserve their lot. Most of them had never done anything to bring such a despicable fate upon themselves. They were innocents. But that didn’t change the fact that they didn’t belong here in the Reach. There was a line that had been drawn, a place where the city ended and the towering heights of the Reach began, and that was a place that they simply could not cross.
“Inspector?”
Duran turned to see the constable standing a short distance away. He was still new to the Enforcer ranks, uncertain, and he fidgeted nervously with his ill-fitting black uniform as he waited for Alec’s r
eply.
“What is it?” Duran said. He ran his fingers down the lapel of his own neatly pressed charcoal suit to straighten it. Not unlike the constable, he was still becoming used to feel of the new garment after wearing the uniform of the Enforcers for so long.
“It’s time, Inspector. The targets are closing in. I was sent to get you.”
“Of course.” Duran took one last look out the window and down at the city, imagining the multitudes far below who were, right now, looking up at him. Dreaming of the day they might escape the poison cesspool in which they wallowed.
There were so many, and they kept coming, a constant stream that never stopped.
How do I stop them all? he thought.
He grimaced and rubbed his chin.
“One at a time,” he said to no one in particular.
“Inspector?” the constable said. He was so young that there were still pimples dotting his face, and he didn’t even look old enough to grow a beard. In truth, he wasn’t much younger than Duran himself, but in terms of their experience, their worldliness, there seemed to be a great gulf between them.
Duran wondered from which corner of the Reach they’d plucked him. Probably some tradesman’s son who had never ventured far from home until recently.
“Never mind,” Duran said. “Let’s go.”
He followed the constable along the corridor, away from the daylight that streamed in through the glass and further into the depths of the Reach. There were many different kinds of levels within this monumental structure – some were small and compartmentalised, claustrophobic. Others were long and narrow and twisting. This one was cavernous, filled with elongated apartment buildings half hidden in the gloom. Competing for room with these were great steel support pillars that stretched up into the darkness and prevented the space from collapsing in on itself. There were streets and streetlights, corner stores and nightclubs, and they were all wedged together in this confined space far above the Earth’s surface.
Not for the first time, Duran imagined it as a small city block that had been extracted from another time and place and inserted into a giant cave one hundred stories above the ground. It was an odd way to think of it, but he couldn’t shake the notion nonetheless.
Back when energy sources had been more abundant, there had even been a day and night cycle here, complete with an artificial sky above the rooftops. These days, however, this mini-city was shrouded in perpetual darkness. The yellow lights that spilled from apartment windows were the closest thing to sunlight that most of these people saw on any given day.
“What do they, uh, call this level again?” the constable said, trying his best to appear calm and relaxed.
“Juncture Nine,” Duran said. “Real romantic, huh?”
The constable laughed, a nervous, high-pitched sound that he quickly stifled.
“Uh, yeah.”
“You don’t get down this way much, obviously.”
“No sir. My family isn’t from around these parts.”
Duran followed him into a narrow alleyway where an overhead lantern illuminated only a small patch of ground, leaving the rest in darkness.
“What’s your name, Constable?” Duran said.
“I’m Symes, Inspector Duran.”
“First time on a takedown, Constable Symes?”
“Yessir. Sure is.”
“Just relax, okay? You’re in safe hands.”
“Yessir.”
They entered a run-down workshop that the Enforcers had turned into a temporary command centre for their operation. Tunks sat slouched in a chair, his impressive belly almost touching the display terminal, and several other personnel busied themselves with surveillance equipment that had been scattered around the room.
“Good of you to join us, Inspector,” Tunks drawled. “Thought you were going to miss your own party for a minute there.”
“Just clearing my head, Sergeant Tunks.”
Tunks grinned, displaying gappy yellow teeth. “That’s right. This must be your first dance since that balls-up a few years back.”
“Balls-up?” Symes said warily.
“Oh, you didn’t hear about that one?” Tunks said, popping a candy in his mouth and wiping his fingers on the sleeve of his uniform. He gave Duran a condescending look.
“It’s a wonder,” Duran said, turning his attention to the terminal. “Tunks talks about it just about every day.”
“What can I say?” Tunks said. “I’m a fan of the classics.”
“That’ll do, Sergeant,” Duran said. In truth, he felt almost as nervous as Symes looked. Today was a big deal for him. If he messed up this operation, there wouldn’t be another opportunity sent his way. His name would have a large red cross placed against it, and that would be the end of his career aspirations for the foreseeable future.
“Back to work, then, huh?” Tunks said.
“Yes, back to work. Do we have Feng on the line?” Duran said.
Tunks held up a headset. “Give it a shot.”
Duran took the headset and pressed his head to the earpiece, adjusting the microphone to the correct position as he stared at the feed on the terminal. The flickering display showed a shop counter from a hidden camera mounted at a high angle, the image jaundiced and grainy.
“Feng?” Duran said. “Where are you? It’s showtime.”
There was a rustling sound and then a squat man with pronounced pockmarks on his face stepped into view of the camera.
“Keep your pants on, man. I’m here,” Feng said, glancing up in annoyance at the camera. He fidgeted with something in his hands and then popped it under the counter, and Duran saw the glint of metal before it disappeared.
“You’re not carrying, are you?” Duran said. “I told you we’d handle this.”
“Have you heard the stories about this guy?” Feng said. “This guys is yìnghàn, man. He’s badass. I’m not going to sit here without protection.”
“We’re your protection.”
“No offence, Inspector, but you’re about as much protection as a condom that’s been stuffed through a cheese grater.”
Duran lowered the headset. “We need someone to get in there and extract that piece. I don’t want him armed.”
“No time, Inspector,” one of the men manning the surveillance said. “The targets are already entering the street.”
“Dammit.” Duran lifted the headset again. “Feng, they’re almost on you.”
“Fuck it,” Feng said hoarsely. “I don’t wanna do this, man.”
“Too late. You have to follow through now.”
Feng turned and glanced behind him, surveying the rear of the store, panicked.
“Goddammit, I can’t.”
“You take one step away from that counter and I’ll have you out of the Reach so fast you’ll think you’re in free fall. We’ll see how long you last back in the slums.”
“No, don’t do that, man!”
“Just calm down, Feng,” Duran said. “Set up the deal and let him walk back out the door again. Once they’re out on the street, we’ll handle it.” Duran glanced over his shoulder. “Are the Breach Team set?”
“They’re ready, Inspector.”
The camera switched to the view outside on the street, and the shadowy form of five or six men wearing trenchcoats could be seen making their way toward Feng’s store. They came to a halt not far away and seemed to confer about something.
“They’re backing out,” Tunks said, a frown creasing his brow. “They know something’s not right.”
“Not yet,” Duran said, his eyes glued to the monitor. “Deimona is cautious. That’s how he’s avoided capture for so long.”
“So how’d you draw him out?” Tunks said.
Duran leaned in closer. “I don’t operate on guesswork or luck, Sergeant. I research my quarry. I learn everything there is to know about the guys I’m after, every single aspect of their lives. I learn what makes them tick, and then I use it against them.”
“Fuckin’ hogwash,” Tunks muttered.
“Take Deimona, here,” Duran went on. “He’s got a habit, a very strong need for a certain stimulant. He’s also got several reliable suppliers who keep him well stocked, but over the last week I’ve managed to take each of them out of the picture. Two behind bars in the Cellar and another, who decided not to go quietly, in the Infirmary. It was only a matter of time before Deimona went looking for a new source, and all it took was a word or two dropped on the street about Feng, and here you have it… the target about to walk up to a man that we own.”
“Lucky he turned up in person, I guess,” Tunks said.
“Research, Sergeant. He always makes a personal appearance with a new dealer. Likes to try out the stuff before he buys.”
Tunks made a slow handclap. “Bravo.” He turned to Symes. “The inspector here was in line to become commissioner, y’know?” he said with mock sadness. “That was until the business up in the Atrium, right, Duran?”
Duran ignored him and watched as a man stepped forward from the group on the street and moved slowly and deliberately toward the entrance to the shop.
Come on, you bastard.
“Yeah,” Tunks went on. “Sad to say that our intrepid inspector had a run-in with some radicals and allowed a security breach. There was what? Twenty-seven died in the explosion? Did I get that number right, Duran?”
“Breach Team, move to positions,” Duran said, oblivious to everything but the image of the man approaching the door.
The camera flipped back to the view above the counter, and in a few moments the man appeared before Feng at the counter. He was tall and muscular and had red dragon tattoos twisting up either arm.
“Target confirmed,” Duran said. “It’s Deimona.”
“How you doin’, man?” Feng said.
“Get me a cola,” Deimona said, his voice like gravel.
“Uh, sure. You got a preference? Got a few varieties here. They’re all shit imitations of the stuff you get off-world, ’course, but–”
“Something wet.”
“Haha, yeah. Sure. Sure. I like that. Something wet. That’s nice.”
Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1) Page 7
