Zero-G

by Rob Boffard

  I breathe a long, slow sigh of relief. So Arroway came good. “OK. Tell me more.”

  “How long it lasts depends on who you give it to – some people only get a few hours, but others have lasted a lot longer.” She pauses. “Can you bring this Knox person to us?”

  “Not a chance. I’ll have to come to Apex and bring the drugs back here.”

  There’s silence for a moment. “I’ll do you one better,” Anna says. “You know the broken bridge in Gardens?”

  I do. It’s a Level 6 catwalk on the border of Gardens and Apex, named for its railings, torn and shredded in a long-forgotten attack.

  “I’ll meet you there,” she says. “It’ll save you going all the way.”

  “OK,” I say. “And listen, Anna … thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. Just get here.”

  “Copy. Out.”

  Okwembu, silently listening to my half of the exchange, speaks up. “Will you at least tell me what’s happening?”

  I ignore her, stretching my legs out, doing my best to work up my tired muscles into something resembling a fit state to move. I’m going to have to run faster than I’ve ever run before – and I’ve already run so much today.

  My eyes are drawn to Knox’s hand, lying splayed out on the other side of his body. The remote unit is still held in it, secured to the palm with thin strips of tape. I walk over and crouch down, yanking it back and forth. After a few moments, it rips free. Knox groans, his lips twitching, sending a drop of Resin running down his chin.

  One less thing to worry about. But what to do with it? I can’t just leave it here. And if I have it on me, and accidentally hit the button during a roll or something, I’m done.

  I cast around the shelves, looking for something to use. My eyes land on a small box, made of hard plastic. It’s almost identical to the ones Carver makes his stickies out of, only slightly bigger.

  I pop the lid off. It’s got cream in it, white and glistening. I rinse the box out over the basin, then wipe it off, making sure the inside is completely dry.

  I jam the remote into it. It barely fits, but I tell myself that that’s a good thing – it means the unit won’t rattle around inside while I’m running. I slip the box into my pocket. It’s uncomfortable, but it’ll have to do.

  Okwembu clears her throat. “Can you at least pull the scarf over my mouth before you go?”

  She nods at Knox. The tendrils of Resin creeping out of his mouth are shiny under the storeroom lights, shimmering wetly.

  I walk over and pull the scarf up, knotting it loosely behind her head. She’s still bent awkwardly over the table. Her back’s going to start hurting before long. Tough.

  The canteen is still in my hand. I take a long drink from it, then set it down in front of Okwembu, between her bound hands. I spotted a length of rubber tube earlier, coiled in a box on one of the shelves. I retrieve it, then slip one end into the bottle and drop the other close to her mouth, hanging off the end of the table. All she has to do is bend down to drink.

  She leans back, giving me some space. “Someone you love has got sick, just like him,” she says, nodding at Knox. “It’s written all over you.”

  She’s wrong, but I don’t say anything, just fiddle with the rubber tubing, adjusting its position on the edge of the table.

  “It’s Prakesh Kumar, isn’t it?” she asks. “I’m so sorry, Ms Hale. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  I don’t bother to correct her. “So do I.”

  Suddenly, she leans forward, planting her elbows on the table, her face inches from mine.

  “Your expression barely changed when I said his name,” she says, her eyes glinting. “It’s worse than that. Someone is dead. And since you don’t have any family to speak of, that must mean someone other than dear Prakesh has become important to you. Was it Kevin O’Connell? I heard you say his name earlier. What about Aaron Carver? Maybe even Samuel Royo? Are you going to be able to save them, Ms Hale? Or are you just going to save yourself?”

  Before she can say anything else, I’m running, charging out of the door and taking off down the corridor, heading towards Gardens.

  42

  Riley

  I run. Faster than I’ve ever run before, pushing my body to the limit. The few people still in the corridors have to dodge out of my way, cursing as they flatten themselves against the walls. I don’t care. I can’t stop. Not now.

  A smell has crept into Outer Earth. The air is thick with it, cloying and sweet. It tickles the back of my nostrils, and I can’t escape it no matter which route I take. My paper mask does nothing to stop the stench. The mask itself is drenched with sweat, starting to tear. I don’t even know if it’s worth keeping, but I don’t dare take if off yet.

  When I cross the Chengshi gallery, high up on one of the catwalks, I’m startled to see black smoke curling in the air. Looking over the side, I see a pile of bodies being burned, attended by stompers wearing full-face respirators.

  Standard procedure on the station is to cremate dead bodies, but this … have the furnaces given out? This kind of manual cremation won’t work forever. Will we start putting them out of the airlocks? Leaving them where they fall?

  There’s too much to think about, too many questions I’d rather not answer.

  I make good time, reaching the broken bridge in just under an hour. If I get the drug mix from Anna now, I might just be in time to save Knox.

  She’s waiting at the far side, in the shadows of the corridor entrance. She looks up as I approach, waving me over. She’s abandoned her face mask – guess she decided there was no point, since she’s not getting sick. Her cheeks are stained with dirt, black rivulets running down them like tears. Strands of hair stick to her forehead under the lip of her beanie. There’s no sign of Carver. Probably a good thing.

  “You took your time,” she says as I come to a halt. “I thought you weren’t going to make it.”

  I lean against the wall, breathing hard. It’s a moment or two before I can raise my head to look at her.

  “I’m just fine,” I say, throwing a weary thumbs-up.

  “Any Resin symptoms?”

  “Not with me. Did you bring the drugs? I need to get going.”

  “Riley, you can barely stand.”

  I don’t want to admit she’s right. My legs are trembling, like a baby standing for the first time.

  “Doesn’t matter,” I say, holding out my hand. “I don’t have a choice.”

  But instead of handing me the vial or test tube or whatever it is, she places a hand on the corridor wall, and shakes her head. A ringlet of blonde hair, stained with sweat, falls over her face, and she pulls it back. “It’s not just Resin. There are other things now, too. Dysentery.” She says it die-sentree. “The last time we had someone with it was over two hundred years ago on Earth. On Earth, Riley.”

  “Anna, give me the drugs. Please.”

  “Do you think it’s us?” she says. She keeps looking back over her shoulder, and over mine, to the other end of the catwalk. “Do you think we’ve got something to do with it? Why else wouldn’t we be getting sick?”

  What little radar I have is starting to ping repeatedly. I reach forward, grip Anna’s shoulder. “Just give me the drugs, and let me take care of this.”

  “Stop being so bloody selfish. Come in. Let the doctors test you. They got nothing from my blood, or from Carver’s, but maybe yours will be different. And they can take the bombs out.”

  “Are you insane? If I don’t get those drugs to Morgan Knox I’m as good as dead.” I jab a finger at my shaking legs. “And there’s no taking them out. If I try, then what happened to Kev…” I trail off.

  She stares at me, her eyes hard. “In that case, I’m sorry Riley. I didn’t want it to be this way.”

  They’re at the other end of the corridor, just where it takes a turn. Stompers. Grey-clad, with full-face masks like the heads of beetles, all tubing and shining faceplates. Stingers out, pointed right at
us.

  Royo and the others must have listening in when we spoke over SPOCS. They lured me right in.

  Anna flattens herself against the corridor wall. She doesn’t look at me.

  I’m already moving, sprinting back the way I came, but there are stompers on the catwalk, their feet pounding the metal as they run towards me.

  Something deep inside me snaps.

  I want it to be over. Not just the bombs, but everything: the guilt, the nightmares, the days of trying and failing to make any sort of difference at all. Because, the truth is, Outer Earth doesn’t need me. Maybe I saved it once, but I can’t save it now. I can’t stop Resin, any more than I could save my father.

  Turning in mid-stride, I put one hand on the railing of the catwalk, then get a foot up on it. We’re high up enough. It’ll be quick.

  I try to picture Prakesh’s face in my mind, but it won’t come, like the connections have been severed. Carver’s, too, and Kevin’s. Right then, as I feel myself going over, it’s my father’s face I see. The look in his eyes, right before I executed the on-screen command that killed him. My name, glaring orange over his face.

  The stompers running towards me on the catwalk are in another universe. Gravity takes hold of me, caressing my stomach, getting ready to grip tight and pull.

  43

  Riley

  But there are hands on my back, my shoulders, my arms. Gravity’s grip loosens as they pull me back, hauling me off the railing. I’m airborne for a split second before slamming into the floor of the catwalk.

  My head cracks the metal, turning my vision grey. I’m shouting: not even words, just inarticulate yells which turn into sobs as the tears run down my face, staining my face mask.

  I’m hauled to my feet, hands gripping my upper arms tightly. Royo is there, staring daggers through the faceplate of his mask. Through a gap in the stompers, I see Anna. Her face is cold, set with purpose, but her eyes tell a different story.

  “I thought I could trust you, Hale,” Royo says, his words distorted by the mask.

  I swallow. “Sam,” I say, using his first name. He does nothing. I continue: “You don’t understand. I had to—”

  “You split from your team. You break Janice Okwembu out of the brig. You’re not getting sick from Resin. You are possibly responsible for the death of Kevin O’Connell. You’re damn right I don’t understand.”

  “You know about what’s inside me,” I say. “You heard me talking to Anna, and you know what’ll happen if I don’t get back. Sam, please.”

  He talks over me. “You’re under arrest, Hale. And if you try to run, then so help me I will put a bullet in your head and walk away whistling.”

  I’m hustled past them, marched so fast down the corridor that my feet barely touch the ground. I try to find some energy. Maybe I can fight them, make Royo put that bullet in me. But there’s nothing. My legs feel like pieces of lead, dead and useless. They take my wristband, pull my earpiece out.

  “Where are we going?” I say eventually.

  “Apex,” says the stomper on my right. “We need to get a blood sample.”

  I don’t remember half the journey to the hospital. We have to pass through multiple checkpoints, each one guarded by stompers with full masks. They’ve locked down the entire sector, surrounding it with stompers – the last stand against an encroaching tide of Resin.

  The walls of Apex are a dazzling white, glaring under the ceiling lights. The harsh light brings back bad memories – the last time I was here, I’d just run through the Core, almost hypothermic with cold.

  What little order there was in the sector’s hospital is gone. Beds have spilled out of the doors, makeshift mattresses littering the floors of the wards and the surrounding corridors. There are huddled shapes on them, wrapped in blankets, shivering. Several are still, with the fabric pulled over their faces. Doctors move between the mattresses, bending down to their patients, occasionally rising to glance at each other and shake their heads.

  They take me to a small ward by the main offices. It’s strikingly similar to Knox’s operating room; there are the same units and basins lining the walls, the same hospital bed in the middle. The bed is a little more comfortable than the one Okwembu is currently chained to, with a padded mattress and a raised headrest, but there are the same wrist and ankle cuffs hanging off the side. Before I can argue, the stompers lift me up onto the bed, strapping me down, pulling the velcro tight. I can move my hands and feet a little, but not enough to make any difference. The mattress feels rough and clammy on my skin.

  One of them brings over a canteen with a straw attached. The water soothes my parched throat, and I can feel my body relaxing into the bed.

  At least I don’t have to run any more.

  Han Tseng walks in, along with a doctor. It’s Arroway – he doesn’t identify himself, but he’s still wearing his name tag. He looks familiar, and I remember running a hospital job for him before, back when I was still with the Devil Dancers. I remember him looking tired back then – right now, he looks like he’s about to fall over.

  “Don’t look so terrified,” he says, washing his hands in the basin. “It’s not as if we’re going to operate without anaesthetic. I just need a blood sample.”

  “Do you think there’s any chance it’ll work?” I ask. But he doesn’t meet my eyes, just raises a syringe to his face, tapping the needle to knock the air out. My arm is swabbed with alcohol, icy-cold, followed by the bite of the needle as it goes in. I hiss, failing to clamp the noise down in time.

  “Of course it won’t work,” says Han Tseng. “You’ll have the same things in your blood as your friends Beck and Carver. Just a lot of highly complex antibodies that we can’t replicate. But we have to at least try.”

  Arroway draws the needle out. The blood in the syringe – my blood – is a red so dark it’s almost black.

  “I heard there was a way of stabilising people with Resin,” I say.

  Arroway shrugs. “It’s a mix of furosemide and nitrates we cooked up. Stops the lungs filling completely with fluid. But it only slows Resin down. Eventually, everyone dies.”

  “Did they tell you about the bombs?” I ask.

  Tseng shakes his head. He’s not saying no – he’s shaking it in disbelief. When he looks back up, there’s contempt on his face. “You use Resin as an excuse to settle a score with Janice Okwembu? And then you cook up this story? What do you want me to say here?”

  Anger surges through me. “It’s not a story. Pull up my pants leg. Look for yourself.”

  His eyes linger on my legs for a moment, but he makes no move towards them. “You can’t put remote-control bombs in someone. It’s insane.”

  I try to keep the fury out of my voice. “Just look. You’ll see the stitches. Or better yet – there’s a control unit in my left pocket. It’s right there.”

  Han Tseng loses it. He walks over, slams his hands down on the bed, stares right into my face. “We’ve lost everything. The only thing I can do now is try to save what’s left. See him?” He points to Arroway. “He and his colleagues are working overtime, trying to figure out how we beat this thing. Do you imagine for a moment that I’m going to pull him away from that so he can perform exploratory surgery on your say-so?”

  “My friend is dead. His name was Kevin, and he was killed the same way.”

  Tseng turns, and strides to the door, not looking back.

  “Just put me under then,” I say. “Knock me out. I don’t want to feel it. Knock me out!”

  But he and Arroway are gone. The stomper standing outside the door looks in, his gaze lingering on my prone body. Then the door shuts, sliding closed, and I hear it lock with a click that echoes off the walls. I yank at the restraints, but they stay strapped tight.

  It doesn’t take long for me to wear myself out. There’s nothing I can do now.

  Distantly, I wonder how long I have before Knox’s heart stops beating and the signal is transmitted. An hour? Two? I still can’t quite believ
e that the drugs to keep him alive, to keep me alive, are right here in this hospital. They may as well be on the other side of the moon.

  I can’t even work up any anger against Anna. She may have betrayed me, but it feels like something that happened a long, long time ago.

  Will Carver come and see me? What will he say? And when it’s all over … will they stick me on one of those funeral pyres? Will they tell Prakesh?

  The room is quiet – even the hum of the station is muted here, reduced to a low hiss. Time passes – I don’t know how much. There’s a security camera in the top corner of the wall by the door, flashing a tiny red light every few seconds, its black lens staring down at me. I can see the hospital bed reflected in its gaze. I expect Royo to come and question me, but it doesn’t happen.

  I close my eyes. The light in the room turns orange under my lids. I try to picture myself on Earth, running through that field of grass that I’ve dreamt about so often, under a warm sun, and a sky so blue that it hurts to look at it.

  There’s a loud click.

  Just as I open my eyes in surprise, the lights in the room flicker and die, plunging me into darkness.

  44

  Prakesh

  They cross the hangar in silence, heading for the Food Lab. Prakesh is acutely aware of the stinger jammed in his back, but even more aware of the man holding it.

  Julian is hanging on the end of a very thin thread, and Prakesh doesn’t want to think about what will happen if it snaps. He isn’t crazy – at least, Prakesh doesn’t think so. But he’s very scared, and that means he’ll be quick to do something stupid.

  “That’s it,” Julian says, as they pass under the oak trees running along the side of the lab. “Keep walking.”

  The men carrying the plasma cutter – Iko and Roger – walk behind them. Prakesh can hear them struggling with it, swearing under their breath as they lug it across the floor. The other people in the group walk ahead of Julian, as if scouting the way. Prakesh can tell that they’re on edge as well, can tell from the set of their shoulders that they don’t like this. Then again, they aren’t the ones with a stinger in their backs.