by Rob Boffard
The gang is back on its feet ahead of us. There aren’t that many, but they crowd the corridor. Carver shouts something, his words lost in the roar of the engine, then twists the power so hard that the grip almost comes off in his hand. The Boneshaker surges forward, its vibrations threatening to shake me apart, and we head right for the middle of them.
At the very last second, the gang scatters, diving out of the way.
One of them doesn’t move fast enough, and the Boneshaker rumbles over her ankle. Her scream drills into my ears, but it’s gone almost as soon as it starts. I expect to hear stinger fire, but we’ve knocked them down, and soon we’ve left them behind.
“Whatever you did to the batteries, it worked!” I shout.
Carver nods. “How’s our patient doing?” he says.
I lean forward, studying Knox. He’s unconscious again. The drool on his face has dried to a thick crust.
63
Riley
The power failures have grown worse – there are large parts of the station in darkness now, whole corridors blacked out. I think of the cities back on Earth. Or, at least, how I imagine them to have been. Huge buildings, towering to the sky. Thin streets winding between them like pieces of string, pulled tight. Easy to imagine them teeming with millions of people. What’s hard is to imagine them empty, after the nuclear war. It must have been like Outer Earth is now.
The closer we get, the more scared I feel. It’s impossible to know how Knox is doing, or how long he has. There’s no telling whether more of the drug will even help him. Maybe it’s something you can only take once.
Don’t think about that.
There are more bodies, and the sickly sweet smell of decay is thicker, ebbing and flowing through the corridors. But there are no more gangs, and nobody stops us. It’s not long before we cross the border into Tzevya.
Ahead of us, the corridor becomes a T-junction. Someone has scrawled a message on the wall in black ink, and, as Carver slows to take the corner, I see it clearly. Resin? Turn back we shoot on sight.
They might shoot on sight, but so far Tzevya looks deserted. I’d expected to find the corridors blocked by debris or something, but they’re wide open, although the doors alongside remain closed.
We trundle down a short flight of stairs onto the bottom level. There’s another corridor ahead of us, long and empty. Most of it is in darkness, but here and there a few lights flicker, still holding out.
I feel Carver hesitate for a moment, as if reluctant to go back up to full speed. But then he guns the Boneshaker. The wheels squeal, spitting up smoke, and we speed down the centre of the corridor.
We’re about halfway down when I see it.
It’s so fleeting that I’m almost ready to believe I imagined it, but then it catches the light again.
“Stop!” I scream at Carver.
He turns to look at me, his eyes narrowed in confusion. We’re still going way too fast. I hurl myself forward, pressing up against Knox, scrabbling for the brake. Carver yells in surprise.
The Boneshaker starts to skid. Its wheel clips the wall, and we nearly unbalance as the vehicle lurches the other way.
My hand is on the brake, pulling it hard, my feet gripping the body of the Boneshaker in a desperate attempt to hold on. Carver is screaming, trying to control the machine, his hand fighting with mine for the stick.
I feel the machine tilt …
We come back, slamming into the ground and ending in a screeching, grumbling halt in the middle of the corridor. The engine cuts, leaving nothing but the sound of our breathing.
Carver starts to turn around, on the verge of asking me what I was doing—
And stops dead as the wire strung up across the corridor just touches the side of his neck
I still can’t believe I saw it. I can barely see it now – it’s only really noticeable through the impression it’s leaving in the skin of Carver’s neck, a thin channel just to the right of his Adam’s apple. Somewhere, very distant, an alarm is blaring.
Very slowly, Carver leans backwards. His finger searches for the wire, finds it, twangs it gently. The light dances off it, zipping up and down its length.
“Like I said,” I say. “Stop.”
When he looks back to me, his eyes have gone huge.
Right then, what feels like every door in the corridor bursts open. There are people everywhere, ripping us off the Boneshaker and throwing us to the ground.
I try to stand, but I’m forced down by a foot in my back. I see Knox fall to the ground on my right, see a strand of dried Resin gunk fall across the floor.
Shoot on sight.
Before I can even articulate the thought, they’ve spotted the strand. Their angry shouts coalesce, turning into cries of “He’s sick!” and “Do it!” I try to scream, but there’s a gun barrel jabbed deep into the back of my neck. I see one being put to Knox’s head, forcing it down.
My heart flash-freezes. It just cuts off mid-beat. I can’t take my eyes off the stinger against his head, against the finger round the trigger. I can see every groove, every wrinkle. The joint is scarred, filigreed with white lines, and a thin silver band shines at its base. The finger begins to squeeze.
All at once, I remember where I’ve seen that ring.
“Syria!” I shout.
The finger pauses, just for a second. The hand holding the gun is shaking ever so slightly.
And then there’s a voice, cutting above all the others. “Riley?”
The gun is lifted off my neck, and I’m pulled to my feet. My heart kicks back into gear, and it feels like the Boneshaker starting up: all noise and vibration. Part of me is still waiting for the gunshot that will end Knox’s life, but it doesn’t come.
Syria turns me to face him, both of his hands on my shoulders. He’s wearing a medical face mask – gods know where he got it from. Greasy hair sticks to the mask in sticky strands, and the eyes above it are grim.
Anna is standing behind him.
Her expression dances between joy and confusion, shouting at the others to stand down. They stare at her, not sure whether to put the guns away, and it’s only when she gets between them and me that they start to lower them. Syria is staring at me, recognition dawning.
I have a million questions – how Anna escaped the Earthers, how Syria ended up in Tzevya, what happened to the Caves. I don’t have the energy to ask any of them. Behind me, I hear Carver hauled to his feet, shouting at the others to get off him.
From somewhere on the floor, Knox gives a hitching cough.
“He’s sick,” someone behind me says. “No exceptions, remember?”
The words kick the crowd back into gear. Syria steps forward, raising the stinger.
“No,” Anna says, inserting herself between us and the crowd. “This one comes in.”
“You giving me orders now?” Syria says, elbowing her aside.
“And who put you in charge, Caver?” one of the others says.
“Shut up. All of you,” Anna says. She points to me and Carver. “I’m immune, so I’ll take him – me and them, too. We’ll put him in the hospital, in one of the iso wards.”
“Out of the way, Anna,” says a woman at one side of the corridor. She has a face mask, too, and short black hair that sticks up in untidy spikes.
“No, listen.” Anna looks right at the woman. “Walker – you know me, and you know I’d never ask you this if I didn’t have a good reason.”
Walker raises an eyebrow. Anna looks over at me, then back at her.
She points a finger at my chest. “If he dies, so does she.”
Silence in the corridor. Anna senses the hesitation, and presses home her advantage. “Donovan. Rama. Shanti,” she says, looking at each of them. “Please. You have to trust me.”
I badly want to say something – to tell them just why Knox’s death means mine as well. But if I mention that I’m a walking bomb, it could disrupt the precarious position we’re in. And even if Anna succeeds, what then? I need t
o get Knox to Apex. It’s the only way he survives.
“Isolation ward,” says the woman Anna called Walker. “We’ll clear a path. But if one more person dies, it’s on you.”
Anna nods, then squats down next to Knox. I follow, lowering my head to hers.
“Anna, you don’t understand,” I say, but then I stop talking. Because Anna has reached in her pocket and drawn something out.
It’s a tiny vial, no longer than her palm. It’s just like the one Carver and I took from Apex – the furosemide-nitrate. The drug compound.
“We’ve still got a little left,” she says.
64
Riley
The Boneshaker won’t start. Anna, Carver and I have to carry Knox through the sector – Carver and I on each arm, and Anna on the feet. A squad of Tzevyans clears the way for us, ordering people back into their habs.
We’d never have got through Tzevya on the Boneshaker anyway. Most of the corridors are blocked off, guarded by people in makeshift face masks. They’ve done a good job; the wire that nearly cut Carver’s head off was an early-warning system, attached to a home-rigged alarm somewhere else in the sector. It was never meant to be a weapon, even if it came horribly close.
Tzevya has drawn into itself, shutting off contact with the outside, hoping Resin will burn itself out. I don’t know what world they thought they’d emerge into after it did, but it’s a relief to be somewhere where the smell of decay isn’t syrupy-thick.
The hospital is deeper into the sector, a few minutes from the border with Apex. Our honour guard peels off as we get there, as if they don’t want to be near the place. It’s small, with a narrow central corridor bordered by a few wards and offices. I expect it to be full, heaving with Resin patients, but the beds are empty. The wards are a mess, too, with upturned furniture and equipment scattered across the floor. As if they were the sight of a brawl.
Shoot on sight, I think, and shiver.
We put Knox into one of the isolation wards at the back of the hospital, a brightly lit room with a single bed and a keypad-locked door. By now, he’s dosed up on furosemide-nitrate, and he doesn’t wake up when we heave him onto the bed. There’s no telling how effective this second dose will be. No way of telling how long I have left before Knox’s body loses the fight.
There’s no point taking him to Apex now, but we still need to warn the council about the Earthers. We can’t let them take the Shinso. It’s not just the fact that they’ll be leaving us behind – we need that asteroid. It’s the source of our minerals, our building materials, the things we need to keep this place going. The things we’ll need to rebuild.
Walker, the only one of the Tzevyans to have seen us all the way here, volunteers to guard Knox’s ward. Anna smiles thanks, and she and Carver and I make our way back through the hospital.
“We should go,” I say. My voice sounds like it’s coming from someone thirty years older. “Get to Apex.”
Carver gives me a sideways look. “Shouldn’t you … I don’t know. Stay here with him?”
“Would it make a difference?”
He looks helpless. “I guess not.”
Anna clears her throat. “It’ll be tough to get inside. I’ll get us some reinforcements.”
I grind my teeth together. “They’ll slow us down.”
“You go up to Apex by yourself, or even if it’s just us three, and they’ll arrest you like they did the last time. You think they’ll pay attention to anything you have to say? It’ll be safer if we have an escort.”
“Right,” says Carver. “I’ll get the Boneshaker fixed.”
“Is that what you call that contraption?” Anna says. “Can you not just leave it here?”
“Leave it alone with a bunch of Tzevyans? Do you have any idea what the gangs up here would do to get their hands on that thing?”
Anna rolls her eyes, then turns to me. “What do you want to do?”
There are a few scattered chairs in the main lobby, and I sit down heavily in one of them. I don’t have much choice – it feels like my legs are going to give out. “Think I’ll just sit here for a minute,” I say. “Come and get me when it’s time to go.”
“Right,” Anna says, dragging out the word. She’s about to say something more, but Carver shakes his head. They jog away, and the hospital doors close behind them with a hiss.
I lean back, rolling my shoulders, trying to sort through my thoughts. On the one hand, we need to get to Apex as soon as possible, before the Earthers do. On the other, they’ve got heavy equipment, supplies, and it’ll take them a little while to get up there, even if they hurry.
There’s got to be a way I can keep Knox alive. Maybe they’ve got something new in Apex – a more advanced drug compound, perhaps. But, really, what good will it do? Even if one exists, it’s just delaying the inevitable.
At that moment, I feel the same way I did when I almost threw myself off the broken bridge. It would be so easy to go and find a high place, with no stompers around to stop me. One last run, and then it would all be over.
The thought is calming. I hold on to it, pull it close. If it comes to it, that’s what I’ll do.
I don’t know when I fall asleep. The first I know about it is when I jerk awake, my head snapping forward. I was dreaming about my father again – I don’t remember the dream, but I can feel it, like it’s left some kind of psychic residue. My mouth is covered in sticky saliva. How long have I been out?
I stand up, surprised to find that my body doesn’t just give up and fall apart at the seams.
With my legs aching in protest and my body pleading with me to go back to sleep, to sink into oblivion, I force myself to get up. I need to find Anna and Carver.
Although I’ve been to Tzevya before, I’m not as familiar with it as I am with the other sectors, and pretty soon I realise I’m lost. I’m on the top level, in a darkened corridor bordered by hab units. There’s a hissing nearby, like steam escaping a trapped pipe.
I see a man at the end of the corridor. He’s hunched over, adjusting something on the enormous stack of old crates that make up the blockage. Maybe he’ll know where the sector hospital is.
I take a step towards him, and my leg gives out.
I don’t realise it’s happened at first. The next few seconds are a series of quick jerks, like I’m jumping forward in time between each awful moment. Then I’m down, crumpling to the ground, damn near bouncing off it as I skid to a halt, screaming.
The bombs. Knox is dead. Knox is …
But when I look down, I see that my legs are still in one piece. No bloodstains on the fabric of my pants, no splinters of shattered bone poking through. And it’s only my right knee that’s in pain, bright and sharp. The muscles are acting up, complaining about what I’ve put them through.
I feel pressure under my arms, and then I’m lifted right off the ground. The man is there, pulling me up with a strength that his wiry frame shouldn’t possess.
“Easy now,” he says. I have a moment to register that his accent is the same as Anna’s, crisp and sharp, and then he’s pushing open the door to one of the habs running alongside the corridor. He uses his foot, nudging the door open and turning sideways to pass through. My own foot bounces off the frame, and I bite my lip as the shock travels up my leg, like a finger twanging a taut wire.
The light in the hab is low – nothing more than a dim bulb on the ceiling. I have time to make out two cots, a double and single, before I’m lowered onto the bigger one. I put my head back, waiting for the numb feeling in my knee to pass.
“Any permanent damage?” he asks.
My face is prickly with sweat, but the pain has come down a little. For a long moment, I’m too relieved to speak. I really thought the bombs had gone off. I was so sure.
“Fine,” I manage to get out. I try to sit up, but he puts a hand on my stomach.
“Easy,” he says again. “Your body’s just telling you to take a few minutes out. From what I’ve been hearing, you’ve
had quite a journey.”
He stands. “There’s some water in Jomo’s hab, I think,” he says. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
Before I can reply, he’s gone, the door clicking closed behind him.
I can hear my heartbeat in my ears, loud and insistent. I lay my head back on the pillow. As I do so, I catch something out of the corner of my eye, on the wall by the single cot.
I raise myself up on my elbows, getting a better look at the hab as I do so. There are stacks of clothes on the thin shelves running along the wall, lined up neatly next to a small pile of wrinkly apples. The single cot has been neatly made up, its threadbare blanket positioned carefully on the mattress, its pillow just so.
The thing I saw is a drawing. The light’s too dim to make it out from where I’m sitting. Slowly, I swing my legs off the bed, waiting to see if they can take the pressure.
They can. I walk over to the single cot, squinting in the low light.
Whoever did the drawing is pretty good. It’s executed in black ink: a single figure, running down a cylindrical passage, its walls delicately shaded. There’s someone, the outline of a person, standing at the far end, and the central figure is running towards them. Looking closer, I see that the figure is female. Her hair streams out behind her, and she’s wearing a jacket that looks like …
The picture snaps into focus. The passage is the Core, and the figure at the end is Oren Darnell. And the one at the centre … there’s no mistaking it. Whoever did the drawing got my dad’s old flight jacket perfect.
Very slowly, I reach out. My finger is about to touch the ink when I hear a voice behind me.
“Best not. It’s murder to get off your hands.”
The man has come back. He’s holding out a canteen to me, and, as he moves into the light a little, I realise that he’s Anna’s father.
There’s no mistaking it. The skin on his face is shot through with a filigree of lines and wrinkles and tiny scars, but his eyes are the same as his daughter’s. He sees me staring, and raises his eyebrows quizzically.
