Skybreach (The Reach #3)

by Mark R. Healy

  “Seems stupid now, huh?”

  Zoe shrugged. “He didn’t know any better.”

  “No, of course not.”

  “It sucked, though. I hated every minute of wearing that uniform. From the very first morning living in the barracks, seeing what was going on… my illusions were shattered like that.” She snapped her fingers. “I couldn’t buy into the lie like everyone else seemed to.”

  “So what made you leave?”

  She leaned back and allowed her head to thump against the wall, making no attempt to brush the hair away from her face. Her eyes lost focus and her voice went soft again.

  “There was a domestic. Down on Forty-Two. One of the nasty kind, if you know what I mean. Guy goes crazy, stabs his wife. Stabs his kids. By the time we got there, the apartment was a bloodbath. Everyone dead except for one kid, must have been four or maybe five years old, lying in the kitchen with a gash on his thigh.” She paused. “He was already white as a sheet when we walked in, wasn’t talking much. He was already slipping away. But the other Enforcers just walked out again. I heard the sarge call it in as no survivors. I was just… in shock. I yelled at him and told him we could still do something for the kid, but he just turned his back on me.

  “So I used a tourniquet on the kid’s thigh, tried to stop the bleeding. He opened his eyes and looked at me, didn’t even ask for help. It was like he’d already resigned himself to dying. Either that, or he just didn’t have the strength to open his mouth. I scooped him up and headed back outside, and I started running, running like my life depended on it. Everyone out there was looking at me like I was some sort of weirdo. All of the merchants and the people coming home from work, they just stared as I ran with this pale, limp kid in my arms and blood all over my neck and my face. Then I reach the elevators and…”

  She went quiet and brushed distractedly at a strand of hair, her eyes distant and hollow. She almost seemed to have forgotten that Duran was even there.

  “Listen,” Duran said, “I’m sorry I brought it up–”

  “And they wouldn’t let me in,” Zoe went on, her eyes still unfocussed. “The sergeant in charge at the elevators said there was a contamination issue, that I couldn’t take him inside, and worse than that, I already knew that the kid was dead. Even though his eyes were open and he was staring at me, I knew that he was gone. That it was no use anyway…”

  Duran got up and went to her side, placing his arm around her compassionately.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She pushed herself away from him and got up. “No, it’s…” She shook her head and scraped angrily at her unkempt hair, as if noticing it for the first time. “I shouldn’t fall apart like this.”

  “It’s okay, Zoe.”

  She nodded and smiled thinly, evidently not comforted by his words.

  “Anyway. I walked out of the barracks that day and never went back.” She turned to the window and looked outside. “I realised that I didn’t just hate the uniform. I hated myself for wearing it.”

  “I can understand that.”

  She shrugged dismissively. “Yeah. Anyway, enough about me. Why did you join?”

  Duran could see that she was trying to change the subject, and made no objection. She had already shared more than he had expected she would, and he was happy to leave it at that.

  “I guess it sounds naive now, but I thought I could make a difference. I really did. I thought I could help to make things right.”

  “The idealist,” she said with a smirk.

  “No, just another deluded kid who didn’t understand what he was getting himself into.”

  “I don’t think you were deluded, Alec. You were just looking in the wrong place.”

  “Yeah.”

  Duran thought back to when he’d first worn the black, the pride he had felt stepping out on duty on day one. He thought of the time not long after when he had been promoted to inspector, how he’d called his dad to give him the good news. He remembered the glimmer in the old man’s eyes like it was yesterday.

  The smile faded from Duran’s face, and a troubling thought came to him. His father was down there in Link, right now, just an old man living by himself with no one to look after him. Meanwhile, the place was being overrun by all manner of filth that was flowing in from the slums. What would happen to him once they found him?

  Duran had tried calling his father several times since the lockdown had been initiated, but there had been no response. Duran wasn’t sure whether that was because something had happened to him, or if the network in Link had gone down. Perhaps the relays down there had been trashed by rioters.

  He got to his feet and began to pace, the unsettling image of his father lying dead on the living room floor lodged in his mind.

  Maybe Zoe was right. Maybe they should have already cut their losses and left the Reach far behind.

  Instead of hunting Knile Oberend, perhaps Duran should have been down there in Link looking after the welfare of his father.

  “What’s the matter?” Zoe said, turning to look at him.

  Before he could respond, his holophone went off. He plucked it from his pocket and held it to his ear.

  “Phoenix?”

  “Go ahead, Switch.”

  “I’ve found him.”

  Duran felt a chill down his back at those words. “Target ‘K’?”

  “None other.”

  “Where?”

  “He’s entered the transit system, just like we thought he would. He just used a different entrance to the one you had staked out.”

  Duran’s eyes met Zoe’s, and she sensed what was happening. She became instantly alert.

  “Tell me where he is, Switch.”

  “He just went in through Waypoint Thirty-Eight. If you head south through the tunnel you should catch him.”

  Duran killed the call and dumped the phone back in his pocket, already on the move. Zoe started after him.

  “Where–?”

  “This way,” Duran said urgently, flicking on a flashlight as he jumped onto the tracks. He raced into the darkness. “Oberend is down here.”

  27

  Knile stopped suddenly and turned, staring back into the darkness of the tunnel behind him. Roman and Remus also came to a halt and began to wave their flashlights around, spooked by their companion’s abrupt change in demeanour.

  “What is it?” Remus said.

  “Shh!” Knile hissed, holding up his hand. “I thought I heard something back there.”

  The three of them peered down the tunnel in the direction they had just come, listening intently, but there seemed to be nothing back there but silence and the curve of old, rusted tracks that disappeared around a corner a short distance away.

  “I thought you said no one comes in here,” Roman whispered.

  “They don’t, unless they can hack the doors,” Knile said.

  “Or smash their way through them,” Remus added.

  They stood there for a few moments longer, and then Knile began to walk again, setting a brisk pace as the tunnel began to move up a gentle incline.

  “Probably nothing,” he muttered.

  Roman made a disparaging noise. “It’s not usually ‘nothing’ when your ears prick up like that, Knile.”

  “Either way, we’re going to be out of this tunnel in a couple of minutes,” Knile said. “If there’s someone else in here, they’re welcome to roam around as much as they like.”

  “How far to the next waypoint?” Remus said.

  “A couple of hundred metres,” Knile said.

  “Wait a minute,” Roman said, directing his flashlight across to Remus. “I thought you were some kind of expert on the Reach. Shouldn’t you know where we’re going?”

  “I’ve never been inside these tunnels before,” Remus admitted. “I knew about them, obviously. I just don’t have the hands-on experience of Knile, here.” He glanced at Roman. “I could tell you about the goods they used to transport in here, though. I could tell
you about the shuttles that once rumbled along the tracks. They were manufactured by a company called Simmons and Lang, who also happened to manufacture–”

  “That’s fine,” Roman said quickly. “I believe you. We don’t need to go over that.”

  “It’s no trouble,” Remus said good-naturedly. “I’m happy to share the knowledge.”

  “How did you find out so much about the Reach?” Roman said.

  “I worked in RA for years. Close to fifteen, in fact.”

  “RA?” Roman said.

  “Reach Admin. I was part of the planning and development department in Facilities.” He smiled wistfully. “I loved the job. I mean, who wouldn’t? The Reach is such a fascinating place, such a remarkable achievement of engineering and science. Such a melting pot of cultures and socio-economic classes. I was fascinated by it from the very beginning.”

  “If you loved your job so much, why did you leave?” Roman said.

  “I didn’t jump. I was pushed. By the end, there wasn’t a whole lot of planning or development going on in the Reach. Administration was downsizing everywhere. All of the departments were tightening their belts, and people like me found themselves on the outer. I thought my life was on the rocks, but then Skybreach came along and I found a purpose again.”

  Knile had begun to pull ahead, and now he glanced over his shoulder at the other two.

  “Listen, I hate to break up the fireside chat,” he said, “but Team Omega are heading across to the elevators right now. Iris said she’s not going to wait for us if we’re late, so if we don’t hurry, we’re going to find ourselves on our own.”

  Remus pointed ahead, to where a dull glow could be seen at the top of the incline.

  “What’s that?”

  “The waypoint,” Knile said. “Come on. We’re almost there.”

  The access panel turned green, then Knile removed the cable from the slot and eased the door open. The others followed through and then he closed the door again and waited for the lock to arm itself once more.

  “What are you doing?” Roman said.

  “We have to come back this way to get to the elevators,” Knile said. “We don’t want every scumbag in Gaslight finding this open and wandering inside to check it out, right?”

  Roman shrugged. “Sure.”

  “It’s this way,” Remus said enthusiastically, bustling forward. “I remember this part of the journey.”

  They crossed an open area toward a tunnel on the other side. Half-way across there came the echo of raised voices and footsteps from an adjoining corridor, and the three of them lifted their pace.

  “Go, go!” Knile urged, and they got out of there as quickly as they could. The voices disappeared behind them as the corridor curved to the left, and soon after Remus gave a little whoop of triumph.

  “That’s it!” he said, gesturing to a residence ahead. “Right there!”

  The place immediately stood out from its surroundings, even though it was recessed some distance from the main thoroughfare. A row of burnished steel columns ran along its facade, and narrow horizontal windows had been set into the walls, covered by a latticework of iron bars. A bronze plaque near the entrance displayed the word ‘Squires’ in a cursive font.

  “Wait a minute,” Knile said. “I know this place. It belongs to Donald Squires.”

  “Who’s that?” Roman said.

  “The richest man in Gaslight,” Remus said. “He’s–”

  “Uh, guys,” Roman said as they reached the door, “I think someone made it here first.”

  Before them, the entranceway to the premises had been left in a bad state. The place where the door should have been was now nothing more than a mangled wreck of twisted and scorched metal. The walls around the doorway were covered in black residue, undoubtedly a remnant of the explosives that had created the carnage, and the door frame itself was warped, with chunks missing in several places.

  “Dammit, Remus,” Knile said angrily. “Why didn’t you say that we were coming here? What a waste of goddamn time. I could have told you that Squires’ place would be the first one targeted when the riots began.”

  Remus’ good mood seemed to have evaporated. “I, uh…”

  “Let’s get out of here,” Knile snapped.

  “No, the RECS might still be inside,” Remus said adamantly. He strode forward and began to pick his way through the debris. “Come on.”

  Knile and Roman exchanged a doubtful glance, and then Knile shrugged.

  “Give it five minutes,” he said. “After that, we’re gone.”

  They followed Remus through the doorway and into the gloomy interior, where they once again required the assistance of their flashlights to see. Inside, the looters had made a right mess of the place. Knile had never been inside Squires’ residence before, but he’d heard about it, and he knew that it had previously been the closest thing to Lux one could find in Gaslight. Although it lacked the gold trimming and the marble floors of Lux, Knile could imagine how impressive it might have looked like before it had been trashed. There were broken statues lying around, as well as a series of smashed cabinets containing fragments of crystal and fine china and other things Knile couldn’t identify.

  “Squires moved out about a month ago,” Remus said as he led them through the first room and into the next. “I don’t know if he got wind of what was about to happen, or if he finally organised himself a Sponsor, but either way he was gone before things went bad. The looters probably didn’t find anything much of value by the time they got here.”

  “So if there’s nothing of value left, what are we doing here?” Roman said.

  “There’s no value to the looters, but that doesn’t mean there’s no value to us.”

  He led them along a corridor, then through another room that contained a grand piano and other musical instruments, all of which had been thoroughly trashed. He kept going.

  “How do you know your way around here?” Knile said.

  “Two years ago, Donald Squires approached Administration about putting the RECS back into active service. He wanted to use them to defend his premises. He’d acquired them years ago, after they’d been decommissioned. I’m not sure if he bought them because he wanted them for their antique value, or if he had planned to reactivate them right from the start. Probably the latter.”

  “Is there a point to this story?” Roman said.

  “I was the one that RA sent down to investigate Squires’ application. He showed me around and put his case forward, telling me all the reasons why he needed the RECS to protect his investments here in Gaslight.” Remus shrugged. “I took the pictures, wrote down the notes, then took it all back to my superiors.”

  “What did they say?” Knile said.

  “They said no. Squires had his application denied, and was told that if he tried to put the RECS into service that they’d be dismantled. I never heard from him again after that.”

  “So what the hell are these things?” Roman said.

  A broad smile spread across Remus’ face as they reached the next room, and he extended his arm and pointed.

  “See for yourself.”

  They entered the room, and their flashlights were drawn to two large perspex cases that reached up to the ceiling. For a moment Knile could see nothing but his own flashlight beam reflecting back at him, but as he shifted his position he began to make out metallic shapes inside. They were bulky and squarish, and at first Knile thought that he was looking at a pair of outdated household appliances – old-fashioned hot water systems or the like, but as he moved closer he began to make out more detail.

  “What the…?” Roman said, perplexed, as he too began to walk forward.

  Knile could see that one of the cases had a crack running up its face, and the other was partially covered in scorch marks, much like what they had seen at the entrance. It seemed that the looters had made at least some kind of attempt to get inside. He had no doubt that they could have gotten through the perspex if they’d want
ed to – after all, they’d demolished the door at the entrance – but the machines inside did not look as though they were worthy of any great attention. To the layman, they probably would have seemed more like weathered ornaments than anything of value.

  Knile peered through the perspex at the nearest of the RECS. It was taller than a man and as broad as a refrigerator, with a mottled, brushed metal finish and an opaque window near the top. There were arms and legs attached to the thing as well, but Knile couldn’t make out the details particularly well from where he stood.

  “So… do these things run on steam or something?” Roman said sarcastically as he tried to get a better look at them from Knile’s side.

  “Hardly,” Remus scoffed. “They’re powered by fusion packs that are mounted on the rear.” He walked past the cases and started feeling around the wall like a blind man looking for a door handle.

  “What are you doing?” Knile said.

  “Squires had an access panel set into the wall here. It’s–” There was a clicking noise, and a small compartment slid open before him. “Ah, here it is.” Remus took two keys from a pair of hooks inside, then tapped a code into a keypad. He turned expectantly toward the RECS. “I was watching him when he took me on his little tour, filed the code away in the ol’ memory banks.”

  The three of them stood there, waiting for something to happen, but nothing did. Remus entered the code again, then sighed with great exaggeration.

  “Damn. Maybe the power–”

  Suddenly there was a thudding noise, and Knile and Roman were forced to jump back as the perspex doors began to swing outward. Remus came bounding over, his eyes wide with anticipation, and in a few moments the doors had shuddered to a stop again.

  Knile decided that the RECS looked no more impressive in full view than they had when they had been obscured behind the perspex. They were broad and solid, which was a defensive plus, but they seemed far too cumbersome, too primitive to be of any real use in combat.

  Evidently Roman was having similar thoughts.

  “So, you want us to go up against the Redmen in a pair of refrigerators on legs,” Roman said drily.