Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1)

by Mark R. Healy

  The Stormgates themselves were tall arches of black steel, within which pulsed blue energy fields that formed the gateways to what lay beyond. Together they constituted a ring around the central column of the Atrium, a thick pillar that contained the only elevator that led to the Wire. Knile could see two of the Crimson Shield standing there attentively behind the Stormgates as they kept an eye on those moving about on the edges of the balcony. He lifted his eyes and followed the curve of the column, and where it ended he could see a ring of red sky through the perspex windows that encircled the elevator.

  It was perhaps the contrast of that deep red sky from outside and the glowing blue of the Stormgates that had first struck Knile and taken his breath away. The Atrium was indescribably beautiful at this time of day, a fact he had failed to notice the last time he had been here.

  Knile realised that people were staring at him, not just with curiosity, but with bug-eyed, outright shock. He looked down at himself, then allowed himself a brief smile. These people had just seen him scuttle over the lip of the Atrium, and it was probably natural for them to assume that he had somehow climbed all the way from the base of the Reach like a spider, appearing finally at the top, dishevelled and exhausted. There was also blood on his shirt and trousers, which could only have added to the mystery of his sudden emergence.

  Fair enough. I probably look bad enough for them to believe I just climbed three kilometres, Knile thought.

  He looked down at his watch. Only a minute and a half until the Stormgates reversed.

  Shit. Where’s Ursie?

  He began to move toward the Stormgates, looking about for any sign of the kid. If she’d followed his instructions, she should have faced a similar climb to what he himself had just made, but from a different direction. A vision flashed through his mind, one of Ursie plunging through the air much like Wilt had done, and he felt a wave of guilt wash over him.

  Had he done the right thing? Or had he knowingly sent her to her death?

  No, he thought. I did the right thing.

  He knew that he’d given Ursie a tough assignment. She was clearly not good with heights. However, with everything that had happened in the last hour, there had been no other option available. Knile couldn’t be there to hold her hand the whole way with everything against him. This was her burden, something she had to do by herself.

  But she was nowhere in sight.

  Knile kept moving in the direction of the Stormgates. With the passkey in his pocket he could move through any time he wanted. With a shiver of excitement, he realised that he could walk through right now if he so desired. He’d be on his way to the roof, where the railcar would be waiting at the bottom of the Wire.

  One minute until the gates reverse.

  He turned just a few short metres from the glowing blue arch of the nearest Stormgate, making one final sweep of the Atrium with his eyes. Clashing emotions roiled inside him – excitement, anticipation, guilt and regret all churned together at once. He’d grown to like the kid, he realised. He hated to leave her in the lurch this close to the end.

  Then he saw her.

  She was huddled close behind a slow-moving old couple who were walking about the Atrium, their arms linked. She’d been keeping out of sight, conscious that questions would be asked should she be seen by someone who knew she didn’t belong there. She was still in her blue dress. It had been badly torn and was covered in dirt from the climb and from whatever else she had been through.

  Her eyes found Knile at the same time as his found hers, and a broad smile of relief and joy swept across her face a heartbeat later. She left the shadow of the old couple and began to limp toward him.

  It was the first and last time he ever saw something akin to true happiness on the girl’s face.

  “Knilllle!” someone roared behind her. “Stop or you die.”

  Knile looked and saw the Enforcer, Duran, standing in front of one of the elevators as its doors closed behind him. He was bleeding from a wound on his shoulder and looked about as bad as Knile felt, but there was steel in his gaze. He hobbled purposefully in Knile’s direction with his right hand tucked inside his suit jacket.

  Ursie froze in place, too terrified to even turn around. Those wandering around the Atrium responded with a mixture of fear and confusion at the commotion, some immediately fleeing toward the elevators and others stopping to watch the spectacle.

  “Inspector,” Knile called back as casually as he could. “So good you could make it.”

  “Step away from the gates, Knile,” Duran called, still moving forward. The girl was directly between them so he dared not shoot. “Step away now or I’ll blow your fucking head off.”

  Now everyone was running, even those who initially thought the confrontation might be worth watching. A woman screamed shrilly as she tried to put distance between herself and the two men, and the old couple tottered past, not really knowing where to go.

  Ursie was still stuck in the same place, her eyes wide, silently begging Knile for guidance. It was clear that she believed she would be shot if she tried to move toward the Stormgates. Knile raised his hand and beckoned to her, but she seemed rooted in terror. She did not move a muscle.

  Knile was struck by a nauseating sense of déjà vu. The people screaming and running. The blind terror that permeated the Atrium. The girl standing there before his outstretched arm.

  My god. She even looks like Mianda in that dress.

  It was all happening again. Everything was going to rack and ruin.

  Knile saw the watch face on his outstretched arm.

  Forty seconds left.

  “I didn’t kill all those people, Duran,” Knile called in an attempt to placate the inspector. He began to edge toward Ursie, still with his hand held out invitingly. “I’m not guilty of what you think. I didn’t set off the explosion.”

  “Sure, Knile,” Duran called, moving closer. “Step over here and we’ll talk about it. We have a lot to catch up on, you and me.”

  “I made a mistake, that’s all. Some radicals took advantage of that. They’re the ones who are guilty.” He had almost reached Ursie now.

  “Step away from the kid!” Duran ordered. His hand slipped further inside his jacket. “Don’t touch her.”

  “You’re not going to shoot her, Duran,” Knile said, pulling the girl behind him in one swift motion. “And you’re not going to shoot me.”

  “I said stop!”

  Twenty.

  “Do you know why? Because you can’t.” The Redmen had now been stirred from their posts, and as Knile led Ursie back toward the gates he could see them making their way forward to investigate the ruckus. “The Redmen don’t allow guns up here, Duran. They don’t allow Enforcers either. If you pull that thing out of its holster they’ll reduce you to fucking ash.”

  “Not before I put you on the ground, Knile!” Duran roared. His face was red, distorted by rage and desperation. “You take one more step and you’ll never see Mianda again.”

  Knile smiled sardonically. “You’re a bad liar, Duran. You don’t have her. I know you don’t.”

  Ten seconds. Just ten seconds and Ursie is through the Stormgates.

  They were so close to the glowing blue arch that Knile could feel the invisible force pushing against the girl, as if they were backing their way into a giant sponge. The pressure against her firmed and then became as unyielding as a brick wall as they pressed flush against the gate.

  “I’m not going to say it again, Knile. Get down on the ground, right now.”

  Duran was close enough now for Knile to see the conflict in the inspector’s eyes. Duran understood what drawing his gun would mean. It was a death sentence and he knew it. He might kill Knile if his aim was true, but he’d pay for it almost instantly as the Redmen retaliated.

  Duran’s eyes flicked involuntarily to the approaching Crimson Shield, and he wavered.

  Five.

  Knile pushed back against Ursie. The girl squirmed and cried out as she w
as jammed by the forces pushing against her.

  “Are you willing to die, Duran?” Knile said. “Are you ready to trade your life for mine?”

  At those words, Duran’s resolve hardened, and he was filled with conviction. The two men locked gazes, and Knile saw the belief, the certainty in those eyes.

  “Yes. I’m ready.”

  One.

  Duran ripped the .40 from its holster and raised it to toward Knile, pointed it right at his face. He screamed and pulled the trigger, bellowing with all the pent-up rage and frustration that he’d felt toward this man for so long, unleashing it all in one final act of violent fury.

  Knile lunged backward as Duran fired. The gun sounded twice, three times. Ursie screamed. Knile felt himself passing through the Stormgates, felt the hazy blue energy field envelop and surround him. Time seemed to slow. Ursie was falling through with him as the gates reversed. The two of them tangled with each other, their arms interlocking. The girl was still screaming in surprise and confusion. Knile caught a glimpse of the dark shape of Duran not far away on the other side of the gate.

  As if time had caught up with them again and then slingshotted them forward, they were suddenly both sprawled on the Atrium floor, having passed through the energy field. Duran was in the same position as he had been a moment before, still pulling the trigger, but now Knile saw the bullets slowing as they entered the hazy blue of the Stormgate, their momentum arrested and then halted completely, and then the rounds wavered and vacillated, falling back gently in the direction they had come, as if the Stormgate had swallowed them whole and was now spitting them back out again. The bullets hit the ground with gentle tapping sounds and then rolled back toward the disbelieving inspector.

  Duran stared through the Stormgates in despair, not at the approaching pair of Redmen, but instead at the unblemished face of his adversary, the man who had once again escaped his grasp. There was no hatred in Duran’s gaze, just disbelief. After a moment this too waned, and now there was only anguish and a sense of utter loss.

  Then Duran was running. The Redmen thundered through the Stormgates, their rifles humming with latent power. They began to fire, unleashing lethal bursts of pulse energy, but Knile didn’t stop to gloat over Duran’s demise. He rolled over and turned to Ursie, aware that time was still slipping away.

  The girl was lying very still. She stared up at him with those clear blue eyes, her pale skin bathed in the light of the Stormgates above them. Knile reached out and placed his fingers gently on her cheek.

  “Kid?”

  She didn’t respond. Then, a few moments later, she blinked. Her eyes came into focus.

  “What the hell happened?” she said distantly.

  “We made it through,” Knile said. “That’s what happened.” He helped her to get up. “Come on, we’re not done yet.”

  Together they limped toward the elevator. Knile pressed the call button and the doors slid open immediately. They hustled inside.

  There was only one button inside. Knile pushed it.

  “Please tell me you still have the damn case,” he said, glancing at her satchel.

  “I still have the damn case.”

  As the doors closed, Knile vaguely saw Duran stumbling toward the balustrade at the edge of the Atrium, the pulse weapons of the Crimson Shield kicking up geysers of dust and concrete as the rounds exploded all around him, and then the elevator closed and Knile and Ursie began to ascend.

  43

  The doors opened on the only level of the Reach that Knile had never seen with his own eyes, and the soft fluorescence of the elevator car was suddenly awash with the ruddy glow of twilight. The two of them stood for a moment as their eyes adjusted to the brightness coming out of the west, and slowly Knile began to make out the outline of what lay before them.

  A narrow pathway led away from the door of the elevator, at the end of which lay a large open space that was cluttered with blocky machines that sprouted from the roof like angular stumps. Knile saw two technicians in white coats hovering around the machines, checking gauges and setting parameters as the time of departure approached.

  Knile’s eyes found the railcar itself, a machine he’d only seen before in photographs. It was unmistakable. Like much of the original components of the Reach, the railcar was utilitarian and visually unimpressive, a conglomeration of segmented rectangles that looked like a jumble of black and grey cargo boxes rather than the craft that took people up into the heavens. Unsightly black cables ran between these boxes, and antennae of varying shapes and sizes jutted from their upper sections. Many of the compartments contained transparent egg-shaped bubbles, the passenger capsules, while others were simply clad in scorched steel plating. The latter were the cargo bays, Knile figured, the storage spaces through which goods and artefacts were transported between Habitat One and the Reach.

  Extending above the railcar was the Wire itself, the unimaginably long conduit of steel and alloy that stretched from the peak of the Reach to the edges of space itself. As Knile stepped out of the elevator, he lifted his eyes and followed the path of the Wire upward. About the thickness of a pair of large oak tree boles, the metal shaft gave the illusion of tapering the further up it went, until it became nothing more than a strand of silver gossamer high above. Further still, it disappeared into the blue-black zenith of the evening sky.

  The Crimson Shield stood between Knile and the railcar. There were five of them, clad in armour so thick that the men almost looked like machines. Their segmented, glinting red carapaces extended upward to their chins, above which were fitted full-face breathing masks that, Knile assumed, allowed them to consume air in this low-oxygen environment for long periods at a time. They stood unmoving, staring out impassively at the newcomers through the perspex of their masks, pulse rifles in a relaxed two-handed position before them.

  Outside the edges of the roof, the world fell away into nothingness, as if they were standing on the very tip of a mountain peak. As it had done along the walls of the Reach, the wind howled and buffeted them and flicked dust into their eyes. Knile realised that he’d forgotten to put his respirator back on, but now decided to go on without it. He wasn’t going to be standing around for long.

  He turned to see Ursie panting beside him. She looked as though she were almost on the verge of hyperventilating, such was her anticipation of what was about to happen.

  “Don’t explode there, kid,” Knile said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Your lungs look like they’re about to leap out of your chest.”

  “This is amazing,” Ursie said, full of wonder. “I can’t believe we made it.”

  Knile smiled down at her. “You did good.” He pointed toward the Redmen, noticing for the first time a man in a suit standing behind them. “Is that your buyer?”

  Ursie lifted a hand to keep her hair from whipping into her eyes.

  “I sure as shit hope so, man.”

  Knile laughed and began to move forward. The Redmen stood at attention, still as statues, but the man in the suit responded to the arrival of the newcomers by coming forward to meet them. He was tall and skinny, his hair neatly smoothed against his scalp, and on his gaunt face was balanced a pair of aviator sunglasses. The man seemed even more nervous than Ursie, glancing between the Redmen and the two newcomers and fidgeting with the catch on the briefcase in his left hand.

  “I think your friend is a little worried about the Redmen,” Knile said. “Looks like he’s never done this before.”

  Ursie said nothing, and now she too seemed nervous. Her good mood had vanished in only a few strides, and now she stared at the man in the aviators with a sickly expression on her face.

  She did not look like a kid about to score the fortune of a lifetime.

  Something was wrong.

  “Ursie, what’s going on here?” Knile said, but the girl ignored him. She only had eyes for the man in the suit. Knile reached out to pull her back, to demand she talk to him, but she was having none of it. She shrugged him off an
d kept going, and now the Redmen and the man in the suit were right in front of them.

  Ursie stopped and stood staring at the man, and the man stared back impassively. Knile reached them and glanced between the two of them, his uneasiness growing by the second. A terrible thought occurred to him.

  I’ve been behind the game this whole time. There’s something very important that I’ve missed.

  He still had no idea what that was.

  Knile opened his mouth to protest, but the man in the suit spoke first.

  “A disappointment,” he said in a deep, authoritative tone of voice. He enunciated the syllables in each word very carefully. “A great disappointment.”

  “I’m here,” Ursie said angrily. “I made it, didn’t I?”

  The man simply shook his head. “That is simply not good enough.”

  “What the hell is going on here?” Knile demanded. “Ursie, make the deal and let’s get out of here.”

  “There is no deal,” the man in the aviators said. “Not now.”

  “It doesn’t have to end this way. You can do something,” Ursie said to the man. “Can’t you?”

  The man seemed to consider this, then sighed heavily. He shook his head. Then without warning he placed a hand inside his jacket and drew out a handgun, levelling it at Knile. Knile flinched backward at the unexpectedness of it, expecting to feel bullets tearing through his chest, but suddenly one of the Crimson Shield materialised beside the man and wrenched the weapon from his grasp before he could fire it.

  “What the hell are you doing?” the Redman said, his voice muffled behind his mask. “Weapons are not permitted here. You should know that. Your organisation could have its license revoked for a stunt like this.”