Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

“Manifest says eight loads today,” the Enforcer said. “I only see seven here.”

  “You’re lucky you got anything,” the guard insisted. “Just let us in before they come back and finish the job.”

  The Enforcer rubbed his chin doubtfully. “I need to get Skinny to take a look at this. Can’t authorise it myself.”

  Then he turned and disappeared into the throng of people, leaving the convoy stranded.

  The guard spat and turned on his heel. “If they make us haul this shit back again…”

  Roman unhooked a waterskin from his hip and sucked ardently at the straw that jutted from its top. He lowered it, sucking in more air through his respirator, then held the skin up for Knile. Knile reached for his own flask, but realised that it was already empty.

  “Thanks, man,” Knile said earnestly, drawing a couple of mouthfuls of cool liquid into his mouth eagerly, but ensuring there was some left for Roman’s journey home. The water was good, the cleanest he had tasted in a long time.

  “Damn Slummers,” Roman said. “That’s who it was, right? People from outside the wall.”

  “Probably interlopers, yeah,” Knile said. “People in Link are hungry, but generally not that desperate. Those men looked like people with nothing to lose.”

  “They should just close off the wall forever,” Roman said, disgusted. “Let the Slummers stay where they belong.”

  “Hey, don’t forget you were out there yourself, once. That hole in the wall is the only reason you got into Link, the only reason you have a job and food on the table every night.” Knile glanced upward at the sky. “Don’t you think there’s people in the Reach saying exactly the same thing about us right now? Telling each other that Link scum like us shouldn’t be allowed inside?” He shook his head. “I don’t resent those people for what they did. They’re trying to survive, just like you and me.”

  Roman replaced the waterskin at his hip and wiped dust from his eye.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  Knile glanced down at his fingertips. He’d transferred the dead man’s ID to the chip in his finger earlier in the journey, but it had been a rush job and he suddenly feared that he’d done some part of the procedure incorrectly in his haste.

  He looked up to see the Enforcer returning again, and knew it was too late to double-check it now. He also sensed that, one way or another, his time with Roman was running short.

  “Listen, Roman. I hope the future works out for you with the Candidate thing. I really do. Whether it does or it doesn’t, I want you to know that I’m still going to be looking out for you. Even if your other plans fall through, I’ll find a way to get you out of here, okay? No matter what happens.”

  “Thanks, Knile, but I’ve got things under control here. I can look after myself. Once I’m in the Candidate program it will only be a matter of time before I leave this place behind.” Roman nodded at the approaching Enforcers. “Anyway, here we go. Maybe you should hang back for a minute.”

  Knile did as the boy suggested, dipping his head and turning away from the Enforcers, busying himself with securing the covers on the cart. He’d almost forgotten the sunglasses Talia had given him before, and now he slipped them on to afford himself extra secrecy.

  The Enforcers came to a halt a short distance away.

  “This here is Skinny,” the first Enforcer said. “I told him what happened to you.”

  “Where is Gus, you idiots?” Skinny said truculently. He was a pallid sort of man with a thick vein running up the middle of his forehead.

  The gardeners looked at each other.

  “He might have been taken back there,” one of them said.

  “So you’re late, and you don’t have anyone here with the authority to make the transaction,” Skinny said.

  “We can’t take this stuff back,” Roman said. “Is there a way we can work something out?”

  “Shut up, boy,” Skinny said acidly.

  “Take us inside and we’ll get Giroux on the line,” another of the gardeners said. He was an older man with ropey muscles in his arms and a tattoo of a hawk on his wrist. “He can authorise the transaction himself. We’ve done it that way in the past from time to time.”

  “Shoddy,” Skinny said disdainfully. “All of this time-wasting is going to result in a poor price for your goods, I can assure you of that.” He gestured in frustration. “And you’re short by a load, too. This is not part of the agreement.”

  “Hey, buddy,” one of the guards said, “we almost got hacked to pieces out there today.” He was nursing one of his arms inside his shirt, which was soaked with blood. “Getting a downgraded deal isn’t going to be the biggest of our problems, I can tell you. Let’s get inside.”

  Skinny obviously resented being addressed in such a way, and for a moment he just stood there glaring at the guard.

  “Maybe I should just let you bleed to death out here,” he said.

  “And what will your boss say when he finds out you didn’t take the shipment from Grove today?” the guard shot back. “I don’t think he’d like that too much.”

  Skinny’s mouth twisted and the vein on his forehead seemed to pulse in agitation.

  “Bring the goods through and be quick about it.”

  Skinny and the other Enforcer turned and signalled for them to follow. Knile returned to Roman’s side, and together they lugged the cart past the throng of people waiting in line and over to a bare patch of wall. An aperture opened in the steel mesh and four guards materialised, creating a formidable barrier for anyone foolish enough to rush the gate.

  Knile tensed, knowing that this was it. Everything boiled down to this moment. If he could make it inside the Reach, he would be on his way. He would be in his element, able to use the great expanse of the structure to avoid capture.

  But all of that would mean nothing if he couldn’t make it past the Enforcers standing right in front of him.

  Play it cool.

  He slowed his pace and allowed two of the other carts to go on ahead of him. He watched carefully as the gardeners were processed, noting the demeanour of the Enforcers and the nature of their inspection. His spirits lifted. The Enforcers seemed only mildly interested in the gardeners, lulled into a false sense of security by the routine of ushering them through day after day. They chatted amongst themselves and paid little attention to what was in front of them.

  The main concern was that there was probably an alert out for someone fitting his description, thanks to his little stunt out at the checkpoint the night before. If they forced him to take his sunglasses off, there might be a problem. The fact that he was disguised as a worker from Grove would only help if their inspection of him was casual. The ruse would not withstand closer scrutiny.

  Knile and Roman reached the Enforcers and they both held out their fingertips to be scanned. Knile could feel a bead of sweat pooling against the inside of his shades. Although he’d reprogrammed the chip embedded in his skin with the data from the dead man’s chip, that did not guarantee him safe passage through the gates. He was all too aware that the face that belonged to the ID chip only bore a passing resemblance to his own.

  “You can get a nice little villa on the moon for next to nothing,” the nearest Enforcer was saying to his colleague on the other side of the gate. “You don’t need to go further, I’m telling you.”

  “Screw that,” the other Enforcer said. “That place is ancient. I hear it’s springing leaks half the time. Last month someone’s dog got sucked right out of their back yard and into space.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “No, seriously, it came down on my newsfeed. When I leave here, I’m heading to one of those shiny new outer colonies.”

  Knile lifted his fingers higher to attract the attention of the Enforcer. The man lifted the scanner distractedly and completed the procedure, then glanced at Knile’s face as he stepped back.

  “You can’t afford a place at one of those shiny outer colonies, dipshit,” he said, turning back to his conversation
as if Knile didn’t exist. “Not on Enforcer wages.”

  Knile and Roman continued through the gate as the other Enforcers watched, and when they were clear, Knile lifted his sunglasses so that he could see in the relative gloom of the Reach’s interior.

  “Hey, you!” Knile heard from behind him. A ripple of ice went down his spine. “You with the shades.”

  Knile turned slowly, his muscles coiled as he prepared to run for his life.

  “Yeah?”

  The Enforcer was staring curiously at the tablet in his hand. “You’re up for a one-ten.”

  Knile frowned. “Huh?”

  The Enforcer looked up at him. “Your ID is coming up for renewal. System flagged it here. You need to fill out a one-ten the next time you come back.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  The Enforcer turned back to the next in line and Knile and Roman continued on their way.

  “Damn,” Roman said. “Living on the edge.”

  Knile exhaled heavily. “Yeah. Thought things were going to get interesting there for a minute.”

  They reached a large foyer area where people were rushing to and fro, and Knile’s progress with the cart slowed as he tried to negotiate a path through the crowd.

  Roman pointed up ahead. “We take the gear through that next gate and into the processing area. Are you hanging around, or…?”

  “No. I have to cut loose from you here, Roman.”

  Roman glanced back over to his left. “The main elevators are over that way.”

  “I’m not taking those either.” Knile grinned wryly. “Too many Enforcers watching those. I tend to make my own path through the Reach.”

  Roman nodded. “Sure.”

  Knile lowered the handle of the cart and stepped away. “Are you going to be okay with this thing?”

  “Yeah, I can take it the rest of the way.” He stared at Knile as if suddenly at a loss for words.

  “Look, uh…” Knile began.

  Roman unclipped his respirator and gave him a genuine smile, albeit one tinged with sadness.

  “Good luck, man,” Roman said with a note of finality. “I hope that whatever it is you’re doing, it all works out for you.”

  “Thanks, Roman.”

  “I’ll see you on the other side.”

  Knile nodded and returned the smile. “Yeah. See you on the other side.”

  Roman hefted the handle onto his shoulder and struggled off without another word. Knile watched him go for a moment, wishing he could have said more, but knowing there was no time. There would be time later, he supposed, if they were reunited off-world.

  Right now he knew that it was not a good idea for him to be out in the open.

  Knile allowed himself to be carried along by the flow of people, blending in with the crowd and keeping his head down. He proceeded on past several other processing areas, a maintenance centre and a parts store, and by then the crowd was starting to thin out. Keeping up an energetic pace, he turned into a network of corridors which served as a link for a series of workshops and cluttered offices for repair crews.

  He still remembered every twist and turn as if he’d never left.

  The grimy workmen he passed paid him no mind, accustomed as they were to seeing all types passing through their little corner of the level. Knile even nodded companionably to several of them and received grunts of hello in return.

  He replaced the sunglasses to his pocket, knowing that wearing them inside would attract curious stares and unwanted attention. His job now was to blend in, to be totally normal and forgettable.

  In a few minutes Knile reached the maintenance elevators and stepped inside the first one in line. These did not reach as high as the main elevators, but they were also not subject to the same level of security. Knile keyed in the five-digit passcode on the access panel, the one he’d remembered from years before, but unsurprisingly it no longer worked. Checking to see that no one was coming, he produced his small bag of tools and levered open the panel, then began to manipulate the wiring in order to bypass the security. This was a procedure he had performed many times before, and in the early days he’d triggered more alarms than he cared to remember, resulting in hasty retreats as Enforcers came to investigate. The practice had paid off in the end, and now his hands moved with a surety that had not been lost despite his lengthy exile in the lowlands.

  The panel went dark as he made the final adjustment, then came back to life, and now the elevator was his to control. He selected Level Thirty-Nine, the highest this one reached, and then stood back as the doors closed.

  Knile knew that the lower forty levels of the Reach were largely dedicated to plant rooms, the reactor, and electrical substations that served the lower half of the structure. They were in many ways the heart of the Reach, creating and distributing much of the energy that drove the hundreds of levels above. There was no direct link between Level Thirty-Nine and the floor above, where the second tier of the Reach began, but Knile remembered–

  The elevator lurched to a stop and Knile stumbled, caught off guard.

  Damn, these things are quicker than they used to be.

  Then he saw that the elevator had in fact only reached Level Seven.

  “Oh, shit.”

  The doors opened and an Enforcer stood waiting, his hand tightly wound through the hair of a woman gasping at his side. He started upon seeing Knile and the woman cried out as he took an inadvertent step backward.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the Enforcer said.

  12

  Knile stood still and calm, fighting to remain relaxed even though his instincts were screaming at him to do the opposite.

  “Good morning, Constable,” he said evenly. “Going up?”

  The Enforcer glanced at the woman struggling by his side, aware of how awkward the two of them must have looked.

  “Show me your ID,” the constable said. He was a tall and muscular man with a square jaw, and he held the tearful woman with one hand easily. The woman, for her part, seemed afraid to speak, but Knile could see by the look in her eyes that she was in desperate need of help.

  “Right here,” Knile said, offering up his fingertips for inspection. The constable made no effort to scan him. “I’m just part of the maintenance crew around here.”

  “Then why are you dressed like that? That’s not maintenance gear.”

  “It’s laundry day.”

  The Enforcer sneered and then thrust the woman away angrily. She cried out as she thumped heavily against the wall and then lay in a heap on the floor, dazed.

  “Fuckin’ smartass,” the Enforcer growled. He pointed at his feet. “Get out here.”

  Knile complied, taking slow and deliberate steps forward. In those few precious seconds he weighed up his options.

  He knew that once the Enforcer scanned his ID and took a closer look at him, he’d see that the faces didn’t match. The game would be up. Knile couldn’t let that happen.

  The guy was bigger than Knile and in good shape, and Knile was unlikely to overpower him by brute force. There was a pistol holstered on the Enforcer’s upper thigh, a standard issue .40-cal, and from his demeanour, Knile concluded that he was the type who wouldn’t hesitate to use it.

  The constable was wearing a rugged version of Enforcer gear that was fitted out with layers of woven fibre and ceramic plates. Knile could see faded slash and scrape marks around the ribs where the suit had taken a beating. This guy had seen some action.

  Knile also knew that movement inside a suit like that was somewhat restricted. He’d found that out through personal experience a few years back, after trying to disguise himself as an Enforcer in a misguided attempt to infiltrate a data centre. Now that knowledge might be the only advantage he had.

  “You know what?” Knile said, pulling up short. “Why don’t you just let Unger know I’m here?”

  “What?” the constable said, baffled.

  “Hey, dude. You don’t have to play dumb. Just lead me to Unger and I’ll make the
transaction.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Yo, do I have to draw you a diagram, here? Unger! Take me to him and we’ll straighten this out,” Knile said.

  “There’s no Unger here, asshole. Now–”

  “Inspector Unger?”

  The Enforcer paused. “Inspector Unger shipped out over a year ago. He’s off-world.”

  Knile gave the man the most shocked look he could manage. “No! The lucky bastard. Can you believe that?”

  The Enforcer glared at him. “What do you want him for, anyway?”

  “Dammit. I had an arrangement with that guy,” Knile said, winking at the Enforcer companionably. “If you know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Okay, let me break it down for you. I have a product that’s worth… well, a lot of creds. I’m talking major bank here. Whenever I needed to offload one of these babies, Unger would uh… assist with the transaction.”

  “Sounds illegal,” the Enforcer said doubtfully.

  Not the sharpest tool in the shed, this one, Knile thought.

  “Hey, it’s all untraceable. Nothing to worry about,” Knile said. He made an exaggerated sigh. “I guess I should have known Unger would get out of here. Since he was making so much cash out of this little agreement and all. He’s probably sipping piña coladas on Enceladus right now.” The Enforcer stared at him blankly. “It’s one of Saturn’s moons,” Knile added.

  “I know that,” the Enforcer said, clearly lying.

  “So, since my old friend Unger isn’t around anymore, maybe you’d like to see what I’ve got to offer?”

  The Enforcer glanced over his shoulder, then back at the woman lying prone on the floor.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You think you’re going to get off-world on constable pay? C’mon, man, that’ll take forever. The world will go under completely before that happens.”

  The Enforcer’s seemed to consider. “What is it you’ve got?”

  Knile reached slowly for his belt, then looked over his shoulder.

  “I can’t show it to you here. Someone could come up one of these elevators any second.”