“We aren’t the decision-makers,” another man said. “You have to wait.”
“So,” Alton began, ignoring the man’s protest. Despite their rough demeanours, he could see the respect in these men’s eyes and knew that his reputation preceded him, that they wouldn’t dare to interrupt. “There’s a very lucrative deal on offer for those of you who are looking to make a small fortune in creds. It’s a one-time offer, twenty-four hours of work with a nice little bonus for anyone who successfully locates the target.”
“What about for the ones who don’t find him?” one of the men said.
“You still get paid, you just don’t get the bonus.” Alton glanced around the circle to make sure they were all following, then went on. “You all know me. Even though this is the first time most of you have seen me in the flesh, you’re aware of my reputation. You know that I’m a businessman and that my word is my bond. If you agree to work for me, you can rest assured that you will be paid. I will hold up my end of the bargain.” He levelled his index finger at the men. “You can also rest assured that I will not tolerate indolence or apathy. If you agree to my terms, I expect you to give me one hundred percent. There is no room for anything less in this operation.”
“What’s involved?” one of the men said. “Are we going after one of the Enforcers?”
“No, nothing like that. Listen carefully.” He looked around at each of the men pointedly. “I’m in search of a passkey that will take me off-world. Now, normally the identity of those who have been issued such a thing is unknown. The supply of passkeys is a highly secretive process where the identity of the bearers is known only by the Consortium and the bearers themselves.
“However, on this occasion I have received information from an intermediary. A friend, if you will. This friend has supplied me with the identity of one of these passkey recipients. I know the man’s name and what he looks like, and I plan to intercept him before he can reach the Wire and take his place on the railcar.”
“What good will that do?” one of the men said. “The passkey won’t have your name on it. It won’t work.”
“Leave those finer points to myself and Mr. Tucker here,” Alton said, gesturing to the bald man beside him. “Your job is really quite simple – search your assigned zone and apprehend the mark. Kill him if you have to, just make sure you get the passkey. Then you call it in and we do the rest.”
“Why don’t we keep an eye on the main elevators?” one of the men said. “Just snag him on his way up?”
“No, we can’t do that. The Enforcers are after him. He’ll be trying to find an alternate route from what I’ve been told.”
One of the men scratched the three-day growth on his cheek. “How the hell are we supposed to find him before the Enforcers? They have like… hundreds of men.”
Alton shrugged. “You know the Reach better than I. You live here, don’t you?” The man nodded. “Would it be fair to say that the Enforcers aren’t well liked in these parts? That they aren’t welcomed by the people who live here, and that they lack penetration because of it?”
The man considered. “I guess so. But they have snitches, people they can lean on.”
“But you have more,” Alton said. “You all have contacts that the Enforcers don’t. You can spread the details of the mark to whomever you like. I’ll happily stretch the creds to others who help in tracking him down. Between you, I expect you can assemble quite the search party.”
“So how much are you paying us?”
“Mr. Tucker will sort out the details with you. I–”
The door to the room opened and a man appeared, dressed in a navy three-piece suit and lilac necktie and hefting a crystal tumbler in his right hand. He was a large man with a sizeable girth, his thinning black hair smoothed against his scalp. He caught sight of Alton and offered him a welcoming smile.
“Mr. Wilt,” he said. “Nice to meet you in person, finally.”
“Mr. Geisler,” Alton replied. “Likewise.”
Geisler took a few steps into the room and then seemed to pick up on the air of awkwardness from his men.
“I trust you’ve been treated well since your arrival,” Geisler went on.
“For the most part. I’ve just been laying out my offer to your men.”
Geisler’s right eye twitched and he cocked his head. “What was that?” he said, not quite believing what he was hearing.
“My offer,” Alton said. “I’ve just given it to your men. We’re about to sort out the specifics.”
Geisler seemed about to say something, then swallowed as if forcing the words back down his throat. He turned and walked slowly to the cabinet by the wall, placing the tumbler down slowly and deliberately. He stroked his fingers on the rim and began to turn it ever so slightly.
“You come in here,” Geisler fumed, still staring at the tumbler, “as a guest, and presume to start making offers to my men? To my fucking men?” He snatched his fingers away from the tumbler and turned back to Alton, raging, his face turning red.
Alton showed not the barest hint of emotion. “You were late. I don’t have much patience for–”
“I don’t care if you have to wait seventeen fucking years for me to arrive, Wilt! You do not deal directly with my men! Any and all negotiations are to go through one place.” He jabbed a thumb into his chest. “Me!” He took a step closer. “I don’t know how things work down in that fuckin’ pigsty you call home, but up here in the Reach, we do it civilised. We do it with respect. And if you’re going to walk out of this room with your nuts intact, that’s a word you better get a handle on real fuckin’ quick.”
“Don’t threaten me, Mr. Geisler,” Alton said calmly.
“And don’t you tell me what to do in front of my men, Wilt,” Geisler said, stepping even closer to impose his physicality on the visitor. “Learn some respect.”
Alton arched an eyebrow. “Respect. A word you seem to enjoy throwing about, and yet we wouldn’t be having this conversation if you’d learned some of your own. Or is it that you’ve never learned to read a clock?”
Geisler’s eyes bulged as he became apoplectic. “You motherfucker–”
He reached inside his suit and pulled out a switchblade, the silver glinting as he came forward.
Alton saw the wicked curve of the blade, shaped like a scimitar, the inner edge serrated, and then the weapon was flashing toward his face.
He moved to one side, well clear of the strike, and thrust his right hand up in counter to the blow, clamping onto Geisler’s wrist mid-arc.
Geisler shuddered and made a little grunt at the unexpectedness of the move and at the vicelike pressure of Alton’s fingers. In one fluid movement Alton redirected the attack, turning Geisler’s hand over and inward, driving forward and plunging the blade through the fabric of Geisler’s suit and into his belly. Geisler cried out in pain and tried to remove his hand, but Alton’s grip was too strong. Alton kept his unyielding hold steady as he stepped closer and locked gazes with his attacker.
Such was the speed of Alton’s counter that Geisler’s men were left unprepared. They stood disbelieving for a split second, then began to fumble in their jackets for their pistols. As the five men before Alton drew their weapons, the five behind him stepped forward and raised their guns. Their aim was not directed at Alton and Tucker, however, but at the other men in suits.
Geisler mewled as blood began to gush from his belly and splatter on the floor.
“So here we stand,” Alton said to the men in suits, ignoring Geisler’s cries. He widened his stance to prevent Geisler’s dribbling innards from falling on his shoes. “If you haven’t worked it out by now, half of the men in this room are already on my payroll.” He glanced over his shoulder at them. “They have been for quite some time, in fact. So there’s two options that I see here. One, we all let rip and put as many holes in each other as we can. The result is that no one walks out of here alive. Two–” Geisler let out another howl of pain and Alton made an exaspera
ted expression. “One moment, please.”
Alton jerked his hand up suddenly and Geisler screamed as the blade ripped through his belly all the way to the sternum. Alton released him finally, adroitly plucking the switchblade from Geisler’s belly as he fell. As the large man thumped to the floor, Alton dropped down on top of him and pushed his knee firmly upon Geisler’s shoulder to hold him in place on the floor. Alton raked the blade across Geisler’s throat, sending another spray of crimson across the carpet. Geisler struggled for a few more moments like a fish flopping on the deck of a trawler before going limp. Alton dropped the blade and wiped the blood that had splattered onto his wrist and hand on the sleeve of Geisler’s suit before straightening.
“Two,” Alton went on over the final gurglings of the man on the floor, “we can come to amicable terms as has already been discussed. Every single one of you will walk away with a hefty load of creds to your name for a single day’s work.” Alton spread his hands. “You tell me, which deal sounds better?”
The men watched their boss choke and splutter his last and then go silent. Alton waited a few moments for them to recover from the shock of what had happened, stepping back from the pool of blood that was spreading around the dead man.
Finally the man with the three-day growth stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”
Alton nodded and then looked at the others expectantly.
“Me too,” another said.
“Yeah. Okay,” said a third.
One by one the men agreed, and when it was done Alton held up his hands as if welcoming home his lost children.
“Good. Then put your pistols away and grab your phones. We have work to do.”
The men did as they were told and Tucker produced his own holophone. He swiped his finger repeatedly outward across the display as he turned slowly in a circle, flicking the data across to the other men’s devices as if he were dealing out cards in a game of poker. One by one the slowly rotating image of a dark-haired man appeared on their phones.
“This is Knile Oberend,” Alton said. “This is your mark. The ride leaves tomorrow evening, so I want him captured within the next twenty-four hours.” He gestured to Tucker. “Mr. Tucker will assign you your zones. Do whatever you need to do to find Oberend. Hire more men, bribe Enforcers, or something in between. Oberend could be anywhere, so between us we need to cover the whole of the Reach. If there are any questions, Mr. Tucker will be happy to answer them.”
Alton stepped lightly over the fallen Geisler, clucking his tongue in admonishment.
“Such a nice carpet to ruin,” he said to himself.
He walked over to the door and then paused. “Oh, and when this is over you’ll probably need to elect a new boss,” he added. The men turned to look at him. “May I suggest you choose someone who has learned how to read a clock?”
The men in suits exchanged glances, as if weighing up each other’s clock reading capabilities, before Tucker drew their attention to a schematic of the Reach on the table. Alton continued on through the door and then waited in the foyer, taking a deep breath. He lifted his face to the ceiling, imagining himself ascending through the levels of the Reach, into and through the Atrium. He could picture himself with the passkey in his hand, stepping through the Stormgates and then moving upward to the railcar itself.
If he truly believed it, it would happen.
“I’m coming, Elia,” he said, his voice trembling. “Your father is coming.”
21
Ursie watched as Knile detached the grey cable from the access panel on the door. The panel turned green and there was a great thudding sound within the wall, much louder than any of the previous locks. It sounded like a bolt the size of a tree trunk shuddering aside.
“What the hell is this door?” Ursie said, tightening the straps on her harness. “And what do you mean when you say we’re going out?”
Knile inserted his respirator into his nostrils and wiggled them until they were snug.
“What do you think?”
“We’re leaving the Reach? Are you insane?”
“In a way we are leaving the Reach, and in a way we aren’t,” he said enigmatically. “Are you done there?”
“Uh… I think so.”
Knile stepped over to her and gave her straps a tightening, then nodded.
“Good. Do you have a respirator?”
Ursie reached into her satchel and pulled out a cracked and beaten respirator. She fixed it to her face as Knile returned to the door.
“Make sure you’ve got a good grip on that satchel. If it slips off, you won’t get it back.” He gripped the handle. “And make sure you move through the door quickly. We need to shut it within a few seconds. If too many toxins seep inside it’ll set off the sensors. We don’t want that.”
“Wait a minute, Knile–”
“Let’s go.” Before she could finish, Knile pressed his shoulder against the door and it began to groan outward. Late afternoon sunlight hit Ursie right in the face, and suddenly all she could see before her was a blinding orange hole. She cried out and thrust her hands up to cover her eyes, and then a great gust of hot air pummeled her and made her stagger backward. She could hear Knile’s voice vaguely through the maelstrom, his cries seemingly wordless, but she could sense the urgency and the insistence of them all too clearly. She moved her feet forward and staggered toward the light. Part of her wondered if she was going to step too far, somehow stumble past Knile and topple from the walkway and out into nothingness, but then there was a strong hand around her wrist, guiding her forward and holding her tight.
The door clanged shut and the wind and noise abated as suddenly as they had arrived.
“Talk about zoning out,” Knile said wryly. “You looked like a junkie taking her first hit of Tranq in there.”
Ursie allowed her arm to drop down from her eyes as her vision adjusted to the light.
“Sorry. You kinda caught me off guard.”
Now that Ursie could begin to see again, she started to survey their surroundings. They were outside the Reach, there was no doubt about it. She could see the afternoon sky clearly above them and the muddy orb of the sun dipping toward the horizon. They were located in a deep and narrow cleft around five metres deep, with steep walls rising on either side. At the end of the cleft, the walkway seemed to drop off into nothingness.
“Oh, fuck me,” she breathed. “Tell me we’re not going out there.”
“We’re going out there,” Knile said, smiling down at her.
“How high are we?”
Knile seemed to weigh up her question. “Probably about a kilometre. That’s a sheer drop, straight down.”
“I can’t do it,” Ursie said, clutching for the reassuring solidity of the wall beside. She faintly tasted bile in her mouth. “Let me go back inside.”
“Can’t do that,” Knile said simply, pulling the rope from his backpack. “Sorry.”
“Don’t give me that shit,” Ursie spat. “You can do anything you want. You’re the guy who knows every inch of this place. Open it up and let’s find another way!”
Knile seemed to be enjoying her discomfort. “I told you that ladder was nothing.” She bared her teeth at him and he made a placating gesture. “You’ll be fine. I’ve done this before and it’s perfectly safe.”
He began to tie the rope to her harness with a figure-eight knot, and Ursie continued to hold fast to the wall, eyeing the void at the end of the walkway with dread. When he had finished, Knile fixed the rope to his own harness with the same style of knot.
“The maintenance guys come out here to clean the solar panels,” Knile said. “With all the crap in the air those panels tend to gunk up pretty often. Stops the light from getting through to the sensors. The workers normally abseil from the top and work downward, but we don’t have that luxury right now. We’re going to have to climb.”
“This isn’t happening,” Ursie said remotely.
“There’s a ladder that runs up between the panels, so i
t should be an easy climb,” Knile went on. “I’ll lead.” He held up a carabiner. “There are metal loops out there on the walls designed for the carabiners. I’ll hook the carabiners into the loops and thread the rope through them on my way up so that I don’t fall too far, even if I slip. Are you listening?”
Ursie started and seemed to come out of her stupor. “Yes.”
“You follow up behind me and take the carabiners out as you go. We’ll need to reuse them again later. You got it?”
“Yeah,” Ursie said quietly. Then, with more resolve, “Yeah, I got it.”
“Good. You’ll need to hold the rope while I’m climbing. I’ll do the same when it’s your turn.” He clipped the last of the carabiners into his harness. “Just don’t panic out there and you’ll be fine.”
“Okay.”
“You can do this, Ursie.”
She nodded, trying hard to regain her composure. “I know.”
He led her along the walkway, and as they reached the precipitous drop she could see the hazy landscape spreading out to the horizon far below. The sight of it made her stomach turn, but she bit her lip and told herself to keep going.
“There’s nowhere to clip in right here,” Knile said, raising his voice. Out in the open the wind whipped against the side of the structure, ruffling their clothes and creating a great deal of noise as it swept between hollows and gaps in the exterior. “Grab hold of my belt and follow along. And whatever you do, don’t fall.”
He stepped out onto the ledge and Ursie linked sweaty fingers through his belt. Her mouth was suddenly dry and her palms clammy. She took a deep breath and moved in close behind him.
The ledge they were standing on was quite narrow, maybe half a metre wide, and she made the mistake of looking over it. The sight was terrifying – a vertical drop straight down. It was like looking down a sheer cliff face from the top of a mountain. The vertigo was instant. She wobbled and then reeled backward. Knile cried out in alarm.
“Hey, cool it!” he yelled, grabbing her by the shoulders to straighten her. “Keep it together, will you? And don’t look down,” he added.
Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1) Page 17
