His father had leaned forward. “Everyone has the power to make a difference, Alec, but only some ever use it.”
Duran had stewed on his father’s words for days, and the sense of shame that had been instilled within him began to fester. He couldn’t abide the thought of disgracing his parents, disappointing them.
The next time the bullies came at Jeremy Long, Duran was waiting.
They were wielding wooden canes, intent on branding Long with welts on his legs, arms, or wherever they could get a clear shot. It was a ritual they’d done many times before. As they’d closed in, Duran had interjected himself between the bullies and Jeremy Long and caught the wrist of the first attacker, then promptly sat him on his ass in the mud. As the bully tried to get back up, Duran wrenched the cane from his grasp and shoved him back down again, sending him face first in muck. The second bully moved forward, but Duran had delivered a sharp blow with his cane to his fingers, causing the bully to scream in pain and run away crying. The others, too, had fallen back, their cowardice stripped bare by Duran’s simple retaliation. They’d gone on their way, sullenly glaring at Duran but making no attempt to stand up to him.
Jeremy Long never thanked him for what he’d done. The kid had merely picked himself up and walked away, offering one sheepish, confused glance back at Duran, before disappearing up the street.
But Duran didn’t need anyone to thank him. His father had been watching from their front yard, down the street, and the feeling Duran had gotten from seeing the look of admiration in his father’s eyes had been enough of a reward.
The bullies had left Long alone after that.
It had been a pivotal moment in Duran’s life, a kernel that blossomed into something much larger.
For the first time, he’d felt his own sense of agency. He’d believed that he could affect the world around him, change things for the better.
It had led him to joining the Enforcers some years later, still holding that belief.
As he stood there now over his dead father, he tried to pinpoint the moment that he’d lost his way. When had he become this bitter, vengeful creature, consumed by hatred? A man trying to blame all of his problems on someone else, namely Knile Oberend, and blindly believing he could fix everything by carrying out one act of retribution.
His thoughts were interrupted by the urgent sound of Zoe’s voice from below.
“Alec? Alec!”
He placed the photograph and the note back on the table and bolted from the room, taking the steps down three at a time like he had all those years ago. At the bottom he found Zoe in front of the display panel on the wall, her hands manipulating the touchscreen controls as the broadcast continued to play.
“What is it?” he said, looking about for the danger. “What’s going on?”
“You have to see this,” she said. “Those motherfuckers.”
He moved in front of the panel, perplexed. “Who?”
She dragged her finger along the display, rewinding the broadcast, then allowed it to play. An attractive female anchor was speaking as an overlay of the Reach, shrouded in smoke, came into view.
“Consortium authorities here at Tranquility Two are still attempting to piece together the events that led to the destruction of Habitat Thirty-One in the early hours of yesterday morning. Sources are quoted as saying–”
“Where is this coming from?” he said. “Off-world?”
“Ssh!” Zoe hissed.
“–and authorities are still on the lookout for the prime suspect in the bombing, one of the Consortium’s own, Consul Jon Hanker, pictured here during a conference call last week–”
Zoe’s hand reached out and tapped the display, and the screen froze on the image of a grey-haired man with a neatly manicured beard, sitting in an opulent-looking office.
“There,” she said, pointing. “Look.”
Duran peered at the old man’s face. “Yeah, Jon Hanker. The crazy bastard turned terrorist. Never met him myself, but I’ve seen him around–”
“No, not him.” She pointed behind him, where two Redmen were positioned in the background of the office. “Them.”
Duran leaned in closer, checking each of the Redmen in turn. One had dark hair and a thick jaw, and the other hair the colour of fresh snow–
“Holy fuck,” he said as recognition dawned. “The bodyguards who were with that guy Gernot, back at the dirigible place?”
“Yeah, except they’re obviously not bodyguards. They lied about the whole thing. They’re Redmen.”
“But that makes no sense.”
“Maybe it does.”
“Huh?”
“What if they had intel on Knile? On Talia?”
“They knew where she was going,” Duran muttered. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying . This can’t be a coincidence.”
“But what’s their endgame?”
“Who knows? Maybe Hanker is still pulling the strings.” She snapped her fingers. “What if he’s still trying to get off-world? What if he found out about Sunspire?”
“But how?”
Zoe shrugged. “He works for the Consortium. Who knows what kind of tech he has at his fingertips?” She thought for a moment. “If he knew where Talia was going, he might have sent the Redmen out to intercept her, to either kidnap her or follow her to Sunspire.”
“And then what?”
Zoe shook her head. “The guy doesn’t seem to have a problem with killing people. Once they get what they want, why leave any loose ends?”
Duran looked about helplessly. “It doesn’t matter now anyway, does it? There’s nothing we can do. It’s not like we swapped phone numbers with Talia or Silvestri. We can’t warn them.”
“So we’re going to just let them die at the hands of the Consortium?”
Duran pressed a hand to his brow. He thought back to the moment when they’d left Talia and the others at Bagley’s, how she and the others had seemed so pathetic and hopeless, and how he’d revelled in that knowledge. How he’d figured they deserved their lot.
Now, he couldn’t seem to derive any pleasure from the thought. More than that, he didn’t even see them in the same light anymore. With the passing of his father and those memories of his youth, his perspective had shifted altogether. Now he saw Talia and her companions not as criminals who deserved to fail, but as downtrodden refugees trying to find their way to a better life. After all, that’s what they were, weren’t they? They hadn’t ascended the Reach in order to destroy anything. They were attempting to liberate themselves, along with the other unfortunates in the Reach who had been forgotten by the Consortium.
That same feeling of shame Duran had felt as a kid, admonished by his father, now returned to him tenfold. He realised that perhaps that sense of revulsion he’d experienced when looking back at Talia was not in regard to her, but instead to himself.
Somewhere along the line, he’d forgotten who he was.
Keep standing up for the Jeremy Longs of the world.
He let out a sob of anguish, of regret, covering his face with his hand.
“Alec?”
His hand dropped away, and he looked at Zoe. “I’m okay,” he said. “I know what I need to do.”
“What?”
“The shuttle that Jovanovic and de Villiers are working on. She said it was heading out to a coastal place called Ayre.”
“Yeah?”
“That’s in the east.”
Realisation came to her and she smiled. “Heads past Sunspire Mountain?”
Duran nodded. “We need to make it to Nix Junction before it leaves.”
26
Nurzhan stared down at Silvestri’s motionless form as he replaced the silenced .45 back under his jacket. He glanced at the staircase, but there was no noise from downstairs in response to what had just happened.
Talia and Roman were unaware that Gernot and Silvestri were both dead.
In truth, Nurzhan hadn’t wanted it
to go down like this. The plan was for himself and Kazimir to insinuate themselves within Silvestri’s group, tag along with them to Sunspire, wait for the cruiser to dock, and then make their move. At that point, everyone would be expendable apart from the cruiser captain, he reasoned.
But things hadn’t gone according to plan. He’d stepped outside on the balcony with Kazimir for only a few short minutes, in order to speak alone with him as they assessed the situation, but Silvestri had cornered the fool Gernot too quickly. He’d caught them off-guard.
Now that Silvestri was dead, everything had changed.
“That was reckless, brother,” Kazimir said beside him. “You’ve endangered our mission.”
“I disagree,” Nurzhan said. “It was entirely necessary.”
“But this man, Silvestri… he was an important part of the plan to get off-world. What good is he to us now?”
Nurzhan extracted the radio from his pocket, the one that had belonged to Jon Hanker.
“You heard the message from Talia that was sent to Knile through the longwave, just as I did. Silvestri made contact with the cruiser captain, Ngozi. The deal was struck.”
“And if there’s a change of plan?”
“Kazimir, listen. Silvestri was onto us. He saw through Gernot from the start. He wasn’t convinced, and it only took a few minutes alone with him to find out the truth. Gernot was spilling everything when we walked in here.”
“We should have been more careful.”
“Yes, we should have, but it’s too late for that now.”
Kazimir pursed his lips. “And where to from here? Talia will never cooperate now that you’ve killed Silvestri. You will have to kill her, too.”
“No, she must live at all costs. We need her alive when we reach Sunspire. Otherwise, there will be no reason for Knile to activate the elevator. We need her to make contact with him first.”
“So what is your plan, brother? Kidnap her? Force her to do as you say?”
“Knile is resourceful. If we create a hostage situation, he may find a way to ruin our plans. I think the best chance for us is to continue with subterfuge, make them believe that everything is going to plan.
“So we will not use force?”
Nurzhan smiled reassuringly at his fellow Redman. “No, Kazimir. I have something else in mind.” He unslung the rifle from his shoulder and pointed at the doorway that led to the balcony. “Take your position over there.”
Kazimir did as he was instructed and Nurzhan moved to the centre of the room. He raised the rifle and aimed at a blank patch of wall, allowed his finger to rest on the trigger. Then he drew a deep breath.
“Get down!” he yelled. He fired a shot at the wall, the report deafening in the confined space. Then he fired another. “Gernot, Silvestri, take cover!” he shouted, pretending as though the two were still alive, instead of bloody corpses on the floor. He fired four more shots, then ran across the room to take his position opposite Kazimir.
“Silvestri?” Talia’s voice from downstairs. “What’s going on?”
“Talia, we need help!” Nurzhan yelled. He fired another shot. “It’s the raiders!”
He glanced back, and Talia appeared on the stairwell, bleary-eyed, with Roman not far behind.
“What happened?” she said, looking about wildly.
“The raiders snuck in behind us somehow. We killed two out on the balcony and drove the others off, but Gernot and Silvestri were hit.”
Talia’s eyes swept across the room and alighted on the two casualties, and she became as pale as a ghost.
“Silvestri?” she shouted, distraught. She bounded across the room to where he lay, tilting his face toward her, and then let out a strangled cry of grief. “No!”
Nurzhan turned back to the balcony doorway and fired another shot at nothing in particular.
“That was a scouting party,” he said. “They’ll be back in greater numbers. We need to relocate.” He got up and moved over to Gernot, and even though he felt nothing but revulsion for the little cretin, he managed to feign shock and dismay. “Dust and ashes! They got Gernot. They got our master.”
“Will he live, Norrey?” Kazimir said from the doorway, joining in on the game.
Nurzhan placed two fingers on the dead man’s neck. “No, Kolos. He is already gone.”
Over by Silvestri, Talia was inconsolable. She was weeping openly, her hands and arms now covered in blood as she attempted to cradle Silvestri’s head to her. The boy, Roman, stood above the two of them, clearly in shock. He stared at Silvestri’s ruined face in disbelief.
“What about Silvestri?” Nurzhan said urgently. Talia made no response, lost in her grief. “He’s dead too, isn’t he?”
Talia looked at Nurzhan, numb. “I… I don’t…”
“He’s dead,” Nurzhan said. He gripped her under the arm. “And we need to go, or we’ll suffer the same fate.”
Talia resisted, still clinging to the dead man forlornly, but after a few moments she relented and stumbled to her feet.
“How the fuck did this happen?” she said miserably. “How the fuck did this happen? I was just talking to him a few minutes ago.”
“They came out of nowhere, maybe in through the ground floor,” Nurzhan said. “Silvestri and Gernot had already been shot by the time we got here.”
“But they would have had to have come right past us to get up here,” Roman said, confused. “I don’t…”
“You were in darkness down there, yes?” Nurzhan said. “They probably didn’t notice you. There was light up here, people talking.”
“Yes, but–”
“There’s no time for this,” Kazimir said, getting up from where he’d positioned himself by the balcony door. “Norrey is right, we’re dead if we stay here. We have to move before they bring back more men.”
“But Silvestri,” Talia said, waving a hand helplessly at her fallen comrade. “We can’t just leave him here like that–”
“There’s no other choice!” Nurzhan said, gripping her more firmly and directing her downward. “Move!”
They made their way down to the lower floor, and Kazimir led the way to the nearest exit. He opened it a crack, then looked out into the street.
“Clear,” he said.
Bundling their two confused and distraught companions ahead of him, Nurzhan pushed forward and out into the ruins once again.
In the night sky above, the pinprick of orange light that he knew to be Mars – his home – seemed just a little closer than it had before.
27
The shape behind the translucent curtain solidified, coalescing into the outline of a man, and then a hand reached out and slid the plastic aside.
An old man dressed in tattered overalls stepped through and allowed the plastic to fall back in place behind him. He lifted a weapon, some kind of handgun that Knile had never seen before, and pointed it at them.
“So you’ve come for me,” he said, his mouth invisible behind a long, shaggy grey beard. “You’ve finally come for me.”
Knile raised his hands placatingly. “Wait a minute, buddy. Don’t do anything stupid. We haven’t come for anybody.”
“Is that so?” the old man said. “Then what the hell are you doing in my way station?”
“We’re just passing through on our way to Sunspire,” Knile said. “We’re not here to cause trouble.”
The old man scowled and looked across the faces in the group, evaluating. “I gotta admit, you’d be the scruffiest bunch of transit officials I ever saw, if that’s what you were.”
“You are hardly one to talk, by the state of you,” Lazarus grumbled. “If I were you, I would attend to my own hygiene first before–”
“Shut it,” Knile whispered, digging the Redman in the ribs.
The old man shrugged. “Well, it’s not like I could shoot you with a hose fitting, anyhow,” he said, tossing the implement on the bench. “Still, it was a nice bluff.”
Knile relaxed, feeling a little foolish
. “A hose fitting? Is that all it was?”
“No,” the man seemed to mutter to himself. “They won’t try anything. Be quiet.”
Knile glanced uncertainly at Ursie. “Did you say something?” he said to the old man.
The old man ignored him, moving away and gathering up a bag of powder and sprinkling it on several of the plants on the nearest row, as if he’d forgotten the newcomers were even there. Knile moved over and picked up the fitting, which was roughly the size and shape of a .38 revolver, possessing both a trigger and a chrome finish. On closer inspection it was not so convincing, but in the heat of the moment it certainly could have been a weapon of some sort.
“Who are you?” Ursie said.
“The name’s Walt Parks,” the old man said. “I’m the caretaker in these parts.”
“What parts would that be?” Knile said.
Walt stopped and gestured vaguely around him. “The way station.” He cocked his head as if listening, then nodded. “Yes, I’ll ask them.” He looked them over. “Who are you, anyway?”
“My name’s Knile. This is Ursie, Tobias, and Lazarus. We’re travellers on our way across the Skywalk.”
Walt grunted. “Good for you.”
“Is there someone else here?” Ursie said.
“Huh?” Walt said.
“Who are you talking to?” she said.
“No one. It’s just me,” Walt said, brushing at a piece of soil with his fingers. “The others left a long, long time ago.” He stopped what he was doing, lost in thought. “Yes, that’s what I said,” he said to himself.
Ursie made a surreptitious coocoo motion with her fingers, and Knile nodded but said nothing.
“I never saw you makin’ supply runs over at Habitat Thirty-One,” Tobias said. “So where did you get all this greenery?”
“Thirty-One?” Walt said. “Haven’t been there in forever.” He got to his feet and dusted his hands off. “Fact is, I haven’t been outside this way station in… well, must be nigh on ten years. Those others that were here left, but I decided to stick around. Best decision I ever made.”
“Wait a minute,” Knile said. “If you were here when the Skywalk was decommissioned, that means you’ve been here for decades. Twenty or thirty years.”
Sunspire (The Reach, Book 4) Page 15
