Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

  “They’ve seen us!” Ursie cried in dismay. “The Enforcers are onto us!”

  Knile continued to scan the walls above them, craning his neck as he peered along the sheer face of the steel and glass, trying to locate who it was that might have spotted them, but he could see no men on any of the other ledges, and no surveillance gear either.

  How did they locate us? he thought desperately.

  “What do we do?” Ursie yelled up at him.

  Knile thought quickly. Turn around now…

  “It doesn’t make sense,” Knile said suddenly. “Why would they want us to turn around? Why wouldn’t they just come out and arrest us?”

  “They’ve seen us!” Ursie said again. “Who cares what they said?”

  Knile turned his back to the wall, looking out across the city. His eyes locked onto something and he thrust out his arm, pointing.

  “Look!” he shouted.

  Drifting through the faint orange of twilight not far away, suspended like a giant egg on an unseen thread, a dirigible came floating toward them. It held steady against the buffeting wind, growing larger by the second as it closed in.

  “You are trespassing in restricted airspace,” came the voice from the Enforcer loudspeaker again, more insistent now. “Turn your craft around immediately or we will be forced to take action.”

  “Can they hear it?” Ursie said, getting to her feet. Her alarm was diminishing now that she realised the Enforcers’ target was someone else. “Why aren’t they turning around?”

  Because they don’t want to, Knile thought.

  “I don’t know,” he said. He could see faces now inside the gondola.

  Then the dirigible spoke from a loudspeaker of its own.

  “You on the ledge,” someone from inside the gondola said, “is there anywhere to land? Is there anywhere to dock?”

  Knile was about to shout a warning, but he knew his words would be lost in the wind. Instead he began waving them away frantically, hoping those in the dirigible would understand their peril and turn the craft around before it was too late.

  “They’re not slowing down,” Ursie said in dismay. She began to wave her arms as well in an attempt to gain their attention.

  There was a noise from above, a grinding and shuddering sound of a great machine unfurling, and Knile turned to Ursie, stricken.

  “They’re bringing out the guns!” he yelled. “Cover your ears!”

  The dirigible came closer, and now the faces of those on board were clearly visible. Knile tried not to look, not wanting to see these faces of the damned, but it was too late – they had already been indelibly imprinted on his memory. A woman, two youthful men, an old woman with grey hair.

  The dirigible’s pace was gradual and inexorable, its course unerring, as if it were being drawn ever closer to the Reach along invisible rails, as unable to divert its course as a locomotive bound to its track. Knile clapped his hands over his ears and finally tore his eyes away, getting down on one knee and pulling Ursie in beside him.

  When the guns spoke a moment later, they roared as if tearing the very air apart, shaking the walls of the Reach and the ledge under their feet. They boomed like thunder a dozen times or more, pounding and shuddering the structure with such force that Knile feared they might be shaken off the ledge. When they finally relented, the ringing in his ears began to fade away and he realised that Ursie was screaming uncontrollably beside him.

  Knile clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the noise, hissing at her to be quiet. When he raised his eyes again he did not see the dirigible floating defiantly onward anymore. He only saw a deflated and ruined hunk of fabric and machinery spiralling down in the darkness toward oblivion.

  23

  The access panel on the door turned green and Knile pulled the handle. As before, a strong gust of wind came whistling through and Knile almost lost his balance. He held the door open while Ursie scampered inside, then followed and allowed the door to slam shut behind him. The access panel remained green for a moment longer before reverting to its locked state of red.

  “Why did they keep coming?” Ursie said from nearby in the gloom, her face ruddy in the glow of the access panel. Knile could see streaks of tears down her cheek. “Why didn’t they just turn around?”

  “What choice did they have?” Knile stalked past her and activated his flashlight, keeping it pointed discreetly at the floor. “Do you think they’re out there on a pleasure cruise, touring the sights of the Reach?”

  “How can you be so heartless?”

  Knile just shook his head at her. He removed his harness and threw it in the corner, keeping a couple of the carabiners looped through his belt, then roughly assisted Ursie in removing hers. He opened the inner door and proceeded out into the corridor, holding it open for Ursie. She remained rooted to the spot.

  “Look, I didn’t like seeing those people die any more than you did. And for the record, I think it’s insanity trying to assault the Reach in a fucking blimp, but I guess there are people out there who are desperate enough to think that’s their only choice, right?”

  Ursie reached up with a sleeve and wiped the wetness from her cheeks. She shrugged.

  “I guess.”

  Knile stepped back into the room, making a conscious effort to soften his voice.

  “You and I can relate to those people because we’ve been there. We know what it feels like to have a life so terrible that the only option left is to step into a floating death trap and drift off into the unknown. That’s the kind of world we live in – one where people are driven to those lengths because they can’t see a better option.”

  “I just don’t see why the Enforcers have to shoot them down like that.”

  “Because it’s the easy way to deal with it.”

  “It’s easy killing innocent people?”

  “I guess they view the people in those dirigibles as their enemies. If the Enforcers see it as a kind of war, it makes it easier for them to sleep at night.” Knile gestured back at the wall. “Playing devil’s advocate here, what if someone from Link sent up a dirigible filled with explosives? What if it made it all the way to the outer wall? It could bash a hole in the Reach the size of an apartment block. What then?”

  “That still doesn’t make it right.”

  Knile placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m not arguing that with you, Ursie. I know it’s not right. It is what it is, and we can’t change it.” He straightened. “And now we need to keep moving.”

  He returned to the inner door and held it open, and after a moment Ursie followed him. As she passed, Knile gripped her arm and gave her a pointed look.

  “Keep your head,” Knile said as she looked up at him. “You can’t help those people now, but if you don’t keep your wits about you, you’ll suffer the same fate. All it takes is one slip to end up dead. Remember what you’re here for.”

  Ursie nodded. “All right.” She shifted uncomfortably. “Can I get out of this stupidly huge outfit now?”

  “No. Keep it on.”

  He led her cautiously through darkened corridors, pausing now and again as if searching his memory for the right directions. Outside, night had fallen, and the workers here had all gone home. The place was deserted, but Knile still seemed reluctant to move too quickly.

  “Where are we?” Ursie said.

  “Lower levels of the Greenhouse. We’ll find a place to rest here and then continue on in an hour or two.”

  Knile eventually decided upon a storeroom as the place for them to lie low. It was filled with gardening equipment and mounds of large hessian sacks. As soon as he closed the door Ursie wrinkled her nose in disgust.

  “Do we have to stay here? It stinks.”

  “It’s just fertiliser,” Knile said, slinging his backpack to the ground.

  “It stinks.”

  “You’ll live.”

  Knile took a cable from his backpack and connected one end to his holophone and the other to a small green disc with a sil
ver chip on its rear face. He slid the disc under the door and left the phone lying on the speckled grey vinyl floor.

  “What are you doing?” Ursie said.

  “This is a rudimentary movement sensor. It’ll tell us if someone’s in that corridor out there. Give us a heads up if we have company.” Knile eased himself down to a horizontal position and laid his head on the backpack, wriggling to find a comfortable spot.

  “The workers won’t show up here for hours yet,” he said. “You won’t get a better chance at some sleep.” His eyelids were getting heavy already. He did not fight against his fatigue, instead allowing himself an unhurried yawn. “We’ve got a big day tomorrow and you’re going to need the rest.”

  Ursie muttered a response, but Knile was so exhausted that he only partly heard what she said as he drifted into the welcoming arms of sleep.

  The fire was everywhere. It was like a living thing, dancing and cavorting and throwing itself in front of Knile no matter which way he turned. The smoke was so thick he could barely see. And the noise. It was deafening. People screamed all around him, running and jostling against him in their mad attempts to escape the unrelenting grasp of the flames.

  Knile turned hopelessly. All was lost. Everything he had worked for, everything he had planned was all being turned to cinders before his very eyes.

  How could he have let this happen?

  The smoke seemed to part as if drawn away by unseen hands, and then his eyes fell upon Mianda. She was frozen in place, rooted to the ground. His heart leapt to see her alive, but through the joy he could tell that something was wrong.

  Amid a world of chaos she was a picture of beauty, of stillness. Perfection. She wore a shimmering blue gown that seemed to glow through the murk like a beacon. Her long chestnut hair fell across her bare shoulders, her skin pale, her eyes clear cerulean like the dress.

  “Mianda!” Knile called, striding toward her. “Come on!”

  As he neared her he could see that there were tears streaming down her cheeks, and her beauty was suddenly mired in something even more profound – tragedy. Something was not right with her that had nothing to do with the fire and the smoke and the mayhem.

  What was going on? Knile was confused, his thoughts sluggish, his normally fast wit unresponsive. He couldn’t seem to piece together what was going on, not with Mianda, and not with the fire. He was behind the game but he couldn’t figure out why.

  “Mianda!” he yelled again desperately, reaching out his hand, but no matter how many steps he took, he could not get any closer. It was as if she was being drawn backward and away from him by some unseen mechanism under the hem of that glowing dress.

  “Stop! Come back!” he called, but she was either unable or unwilling to comply.

  Knile became aware of a low, rumbling voice in the distance. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, like it was within his head. It only addled his senses further and he struggled to push it away.

  He called again over the top of the voice, and finally Mianda seemed to notice him. Her gaze drifted over his body and found his face, but her eyes remained glassy and distant, as if she could not entirely pull herself from that strange soporific state.

  “We deserve this,” she said, her voice thick and distant.

  “Mianda, please!”

  Tears dripped from her chin and still she stood like a statue, ignoring his appeal for her to stop.

  Knile reached out to her, his fingers straining to push through the invisible wall between them, and then another explosion made the floor buck like a mad bull. Knile fell, rolled, sprawled on the ground and he lost his sense of direction. The voice in his head was back and it was even louder than before. He felt as though it were going to make his head split apart.

  He lost sight of Mianda.

  Then he was running, running blindly through the fire–

  Knile came to with a start. The voice in his head was still present, an oddly lingering fragment of the dream that was far more diluted than it had been moments before, and yet still sonorous and somewhat unsettling.

  Knile thrust himself upward onto his elbow, cocking his ear to determine the source of the sound, and then he realised it was coming from Ursie nearby.

  She sat cross-legged on the floor, her back straight and her eyes closed as she pushed her palms inward across her chest as if squeezing an invisible ball.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Knile demanded.

  Ursie slowly opened her eyes, but otherwise her posture remained unchanged.

  “Exercising.”

  “Well, do it without the racket, will you?”

  “I can’t. I need the vibrations from the sound to–”

  “Then quit it altogether,” Knile snapped. “Unless you want to bring every gardener in the goddamn Greenhouse down on top of us.”

  “I thought you said none of them were around.”

  Knile ignored her and checked his watch. Surprised, he realised that he’d slept for almost two hours. It had gone by in a flash.

  He pulled himself up into a sitting position and slid on his buttocks across the floor to where he had left his phone. He reached into his backpack and pulled out some of the food he had acquired down in Gaslight and began to eat as he tapped away on the device.

  “You bring any food?” he said. Across the other side of the storeroom, Ursie finally dropped her hands and relaxed.

  “No.”

  He tossed something across at her without looking up and it landed in her lap. She picked it up and inspected it in the dim light.

  “What is this?” she said. “A bug bar?”

  “Yeah. Eat it. It’ll put hairs on your chest.”

  “Thanks.” She bit into the bar hungrily and devoured it with even more gusto than Knile.

  “When was the last time you ate?” he said.

  “A while.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “This morning. Don’t worry about it, okay? I look after myself.”

  Knile nodded. “So I see. Where’d you learn the yoga?”

  “It’s not yoga.”

  Knile glanced up at her briefly before returning his attention to the phone.

  “So what is it, then?”

  “It’s exercise for my mind. Keeps it in shape.”

  “Some kind of meditation, then?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Damn, kid,” Knile said. “Why are you being so evasive? Spit it out.”

  “I’m a psycher.”

  Knile showed no immediate reaction, keeping his attention firmly on the holophone in his lap. He continued to tap and swipe at the display as he buried himself in some unknown endeavour. He was silent for so long that Ursie began to wonder if he had heard her at all. When he finally spoke his voice was even.

  “Everyone in this place finds their own way to survive,” he said. “Ways to frighten others away with scary masks. Some do it with gang trims, and others with tattoos on their arms. Some carry a big gun. Then there’s those who make up stories about special powers. A few years ago it was shapeshifters. I had one guy tell me he could grow gills on his neck when he wanted to. Another said he could spit poison. The stories change but the origin is always the same – the toxins in the air caused the mutations that made people special.” He looked up at her. “I don’t really care which method you use to protect yourself in here. I understand why you do it and I don’t begrudge you that. Just don’t insult my intelligence by telling me fairy tales and expecting me to believe in them. There’s no such thing as a goddamn psycher.”

  Ursie’s mouth twisted and she averted her gaze, seemingly embarrassed. She began to pull the coveralls back over her bare arms as if the fabric might offer her protection from Knile’s wilting gaze.

  He relented, realising his rebuke had carried more venom than he’d intended.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “It’s okay.” Her face was flushed as she pulled idly at a loos
e thread on her sleeve.

  Knile tried to think of something to say that would put her at ease again.

  “Listen, you need to make your story a bit more bulletproof if you’re going to convince them you’re a psycher,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  Her embarrassment swiftly turned to irritation. “Why not?”

  “A psycher has special mind powers, right? They’re supposed to be able to control things. Control people.”

  “In a way.”

  “So if you were a psycher, you wouldn’t need me to guide you up the Reach. You’d just trick the Enforcers who were guarding the elevators and make them take you straight up to the Atrium.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. Psychers can’t just mesmerise an entire crowd of people. They can’t control a dozen guards all at once. They’re not gods. Their powers really work better one on one.”

  “Wow, the psychers have really had a downgrade in recent years,” Knile muttered facetiously. “They were the flavour of the month maybe five or six years ago. Stories were going around about them, that they could do all sorts of things, that they shouldn’t be messed with, but then they went out of style.” He waggled a finger at her playfully. “You should have chosen something more contemporary. Maybe a shapeshifter.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Hey, come on,” Knile laughed. “Take it easy.”

  “You’re mocking me.”

  “This is my way of telling you that you need to be careful what you say to people. You think you’re giving yourself a buffer but you may be doing more harm than good.”

  Ursie scowled, clearly not impressed with his schooling.

  “Are we leaving yet?”

  “Soon. Make sure you’ve had plenty to drink. I’m just trying to scan a few of the networks around here before we go, see what’s changed. Did you get any sleep?”

  “A bit.”

  “You won’t get another chance.”