by Rob Boffard
I stumble off him, grab my pack, and run.
11
Prakesh
The glass beaker smashes against the wall. In the silence that follows, the only sound is the gentle hum of the lab’s DNA thermocycler.
Prakesh Kumar looks away from the mess of glass, furious with himself. Glass beakers aren’t easy to replace. Still, at least he can clear it up before anyone notices. He’s by himself in the mobile lab, on the opposite end of the hangar to the main control room. Not that it bothers him. He likes working alone.
Especially when he decides to vent some anger by smashing things.
He grabs a bucket from a nearby tool shelf and crouches down, picking the big pieces off the floor and dropping them inside. Damn thermocycler. He couldn’t get it to work – the temperature wouldn’t rise, and he had to reset the system three times to get it to budge even a little. By the time he got it working, every muscle in his body felt like it was on an electrical circuit. He didn’t even realise what he was doing until the glass was in jagged pieces on the floor.
Except it’s not the thermocycler Prakesh is angry with. Not really. It’s a machine. He can understand machines, just like he can understand trees, or algae. When they stop working there’s always a solution that you can use to set the problem right – a system reset, a different kind of fertiliser. They’re not like human beings.
When he’s filled the bucket, he pushes it under the table, telling himself he’ll deal with it later. He stands and rubs his eyes, amazed at how tired he is. It’ll take a couple of hours before he can send the results for gel electrolysis. Time for a break.
He steps out of the lab, shutting the door behind him, and walks back to the control room, zig-zagging down the walkways between the trees. There’s no one around, not even Suki, who’s known to stay way past the shift change. No one interrupts him as he walks down the hangar.
Riley’s back in his head. He always end up on the same image of her: the first time she came back to the Air Lab to visit him, after that first delivery. She was jogging to a stop, her hair flying out behind her, a smile playing across her face. He remembers thinking that he’d never seen anyone so at ease with speed, so in love with movement.
Not that it matters. She won’t let you in, he thinks. She won’t even let you help her when she gets hurt. You’re a friendly face to her, someone who can get her some food when she needs it. Nothing more.
The locker room is at the back of the main lab. The floor is grimy with tracked soil, the lockers bent and rusty. The one Prakesh uses doesn’t even shut properly any more, but the only thing he keeps in there is his lab coat, and anybody who wants to steal that is more than welcome. He slips it off his shoulders and shoves it in, shutting the door with a bang. Then he rests his head on the metal and shuts his eyes, just for a second.
When he turns around, Oren Darnell is standing there.
He’s standing with his arms folded, his face expressionless. He’s close enough for Prakesh to pick out the pores on his skin.
Prakesh tells himself not to freak out. He knows Mr Darnell’s reputation – everyone does – but he’s not in the habit of messing with the techs. Not unless they cross him. He needs them to keep producing results, so he can stay in the top spot at the Air Lab. Prakesh meets his eyes, even though he really doesn’t want to.
“Something I can help you with?” he says.
Darnell doesn’t answer. Instead, he grabs Prakesh’s shoulders, slamming him up against the lockers. They creak and groan, juddering against his back. He’s too stunned to speak, caught too tight to move. His shoulders feel like they’re trapped in a vice.
“Where is she?” Darnell says quietly. He could be asking for an update on the electrolysis results.
Prakesh swings his arm up, trying to hit Darnell across the side of the face. Darnell knocks it away, his hand swinging back. Prakesh’s anger vanishes, replaced by bright terror. He tries to hit Darnell again, but the lab boss grabs his wrist.
“Do that again, and you’ll lose the arm. Where is Riley Hale?”
Prakesh tries to answer. He might as well try to make trees grow using his mind. All the stories, all the little rumours he’s heard when he’s taking a break with the other techs, are popping up one after the other. It feels as if they’re clogging his throat, sealing it shut.
Darnell sighs. He jabs his forearm into Prakesh’s neck, banging his head back against the lockers.
Prakesh claws at the arm, desperate for air. There’s a tiny sting in his neck. It grows and grows, the pain flooding through his body. He has to scream, he has to, but Darnell clamps a hand over his mouth.
“You’re not going to like what happens when you wake up,” he says. He’s at the end of a very long, dark tunnel, and by the time Prakesh figures out what the words mean, he’s gone.
12
Riley
Too close. That was way too close.
Every stride brings another image flashing up. The tagger standing above me. The glint of metal. The sound of his scream, like water burbling through a rusted pipe. If he hadn’t been there, if I hadn’t stopped in that exact spot …
No. I can’t think about it like that. Darnell’s guard killed the tagger because he was in the way. If it wasn’t him, it would have been someone else. I was the target – and since not even Darnell would risk murdering me in the middle of the Air Lab, he sent his goon to do it for him. It’s a good thing I left before …
Oh gods – Prakesh.
I’m already running through every memory I can think of, trying to remember if Darnell had ever seen us together. I don’t think so. But the last words Prakesh and I said to each other are running over and over in my head.
I should go back. No. No way. I can’t show my face in Gardens until I’ve figured this whole mess out. Stompers? Not a chance. They’ll throw me in the brig along with Darnell.
Amira. She’ll know what to do.
I keep running, fast as I can, doing my best to push everything else away. But the anger I felt when I was attacked is still rolling in my stomach. It’s not just anger at Darnell. It’s anger at the ugliness of the station. The dirtiness of it. It’s like I’ve ripped back a scab, one so old that I’d almost forgotten it was there. I feel like I’ve had a look at the raw flesh underneath.
Enough. Focus on running.
Movement helps. It always does. I let my muscle memory take over, and in no time at all, I’m in the upper-level Apogee corridor that leads to the Nest.
For most people, there are only six levels on Outer Earth. But there are things in this place you won’t find on any official map. Vents, wiring ducts, sewerage pipes. And storage units that a person can easily stand up in. These are places that the rest of the station has long since forgotten about. But if you know where to look, you can score yourself a very handy base.
I have to look for a moment to spot the hatch in the ceiling. In the dim light, I can just make out the yellow warning label, its Hindi and Chinese script almost illegible. I break into a run, willing my body to go a little further. It’s nine miles from the Air Lab to the Nest in Apogee, and I can feel every single one of them in the arches of my feet.
As I run up to the hatch, I jump towards the wall, launching myself back off it in a reverse tic-tac towards the ceiling. I flatten my hand against the hatch as I pass underneath it, and push – it glides silently upwards and away, the hydraulics Carver built into it working perfectly. I land, and then immediately leap towards the opposite wall for another tac, pushing off and backwards in one smooth move.
I fell on my ass hard the first few times I tried this. As I jump, I reach up and behind me, grasping the lip of the opening. I relax into the movement, letting my body rock backwards, and then using the forward momentum of the swing to haul myself up through the hatch.
I roll onto my side as I do so. My body screams at me to stay there, but I ignore it, forcing myself to my feet.
The hatch slips back into place with a tiny h
iss. The entranceway is almost completely dark, the only light coming from a tiny digital keypad bolted onto the wall behind me. It’s the perfect security system: getting up into the storage unit requires either something to stand on, or the moves of a tracer, and even then you’ve got to know the access code to the inner door. Whoever designed this part of Outer Earth probably didn’t plan on it being used this way, but it’s worked out pretty well for us.
I have to fiddle with the 9 for a bit before the number appears on the display: the unit’s old, salvaged from a discarded piece of machinery, and although Carver works hard to maintain it, it’s slowly wearing down.
The keypad soon gives two welcoming beeps. I push on the door, but instead of swinging open, it remains locked shut. Frowning, I look at the keypad. Right before the display resets itself, I catch sight of the code I entered. It was correct.
I do not have time for this.
I punch it in again, but still the metal door refuses to budge. I’m about to enter the code a third time when I realise exactly what the problem is.
“Carver, open this door!” I shout, not caring if there’s anybody in the passage below to hear me. I hammer on the metal, and the sound sets my ears ringing.
There’s movement from the other side, and then a voice: “That kind of tone won’t get you anywhere. Say please.”
The attempt to control myself lasts perhaps two seconds. “I swear, Carver, if you don’t open this door right now, I will tear it off the wall and make you eat it.”
I hear muted laughter, and then the click of the lock being released. The door opens, and as I step through into the Nest I reach for the first thing I can see – in this case, an old battery lying on a nearby chair – and hurl it across the room at Aaron Carver. As much as I wish it wasn’t the case, his reflexes are as good as ever. The battery smashes harmlessly into the wall with a clang before bouncing out of sight.
There’s a small box in his hand, and I can see the thin wires snaking across the floor to the entrance. He’s perched at his workbench, a mess of something black and spiky on the table in front of him. We have him to thank for our super-light backpacks. They’re better than the canvas packs we used to use – with those, the cargo would be shaken to pieces inside of ten minutes.
None of which stops him being incredibly annoying.
There’s a gasp on my right. Then a voice, high and musical: “Who beat up your face?”
I look round to find the Twins: Yao Shen and Kevin O’Connell. Yao is on the right, sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring goggle-eyed at my bruises. She’s a wispy, elfin thing, with curious eyes and a tiny bud-shaped mouth. When I first saw her, I thought she was way too young and fragile to be a tracer, but she’s got some serious moves: the bigger the jump, the harder she throws herself at it.
Kev is seated next to her. While Yao is tiny, Kev is enormous: a bruiser with upper arms that look like thick steel cables. There’s a book next to his knee – the book, rather, a copy of Treasure Island that we’ve each read so many times the jacket has disintegrated and most of the pages are torn.
The Twins take jobs together, run together, fight together. From what Amira has told me, they aren’t lovers, but sometimes I find it hard to believe. I once referred to them as the Twins for a joke, and the name stuck.
I rub my eye socket absently. “Got in a fight,” I say, in answer to Yao’s question. “Where’s Amira?”
“Out on a job,” says Carver. He’s also staring at my face, his eyes narrowed. As usual, he’s wearing a sleeveless T-shirt – red today – and his blond hair is perfect, the goggles on his forehead positioned just so.
“Who’d you get in a fight with?” Yao asks, squirming to her feet. “Everyone on the station? Did you win?”
“I’m fine.” Now that I’ve stopped running, the anxiety has come rushing back. Does Darnell know which crew I run with? Does he know where we live? If they get here, can we fight our way out? And Prakesh …
“Don’t look fine,” says Kev, his voice rumbling. He starts to get to his feet. It’s like a crane arm on a construction ship unfolding, with heavy joints locking into place.
“We should go find ’em,” Yao says. “Who were they, Riley? I’ll tear their legs off and play catch with their kneecaps.”
“Yao, be still,” Kevin says, without looking at her. Yao pouts and subsides, but she’s still looking at me, anger and worry on her face.
“Leave her alone, kids,” says Carver, turning back to his workbench and picking up a soldering iron. “She’s good. What’re a few bumps and bruises to someone like Riley Hale? It’s all part of the job.”
I’ve put up some pretty thick walls in my mind to keep it together today, but Carver’s words go right through them, like they’re nothing more than cloth. Without another word, I walk over to his workbench. He’s set a bunch of parts to one side, neatly arranged on the scarred surface, and I slam my fist down right in the middle. The parts scatter, jingling as they bounce off the bench.
“The hell—” Carver says.
I get right in his face. “Do you know what I’ve been carrying all day? An eyeball. Ripped from someone’s skull. I’ve gone through ambushes and assassination attempts, and I’m a little wired right now. So do me a favour, and don’t tell me what is and isn’t part of the job.”
Carver is looking at me like I’ve gone insane. Kev are Yao are staring, open-mouthed.
“Well,” says a voice. “I’m so glad things didn’t fall apart while I was gone.”
Amira Al-Hassan is standing by the door, her arms folded, her eyes locked on mine.
13
Riley
If she hadn’t spoken, none of us would have noticed Amira come in. She’s deathly quiet, always has been, and runs as if her feet aren’t touching the ground. The jumps that I stumble and crash on, she lands with gentle ease, soft and hushed as a kiss.
She has to bend her head slightly to come through the door. Amira’s older than me by a good ten years, and is dressed simply, in a grey tank top and cargo pants. Around her neck is a faded red scarf, the frayed ends falling down her back. Her pack hangs loosely from one hand.
She walks over to Carver’s bench, taking in my bruises. “This is a story I have to hear,” she says, before reaching inside her pack and pulling out a box of protein bars. “I got these from the job. Let’s have some breakfast.”
“Yeah,” says a dazed Carver, getting to his feet. “Good idea.”
I sit down on the pile of mattresses in the corner. It was a little hard to stay standing – my body seems to give up all at once, the strength flowing out of my legs. My dad’s flight jacket bunches up around me, the sleeves pushing down over my hands.
The Nest doesn’t look like much. It’s just two narrow interconnected rooms, low ceilinged, with hissing pipes scaling the walls. The room that houses Carver’s workbench is where we tend to hang out – the other one has an air shower and chemical toilet, which he’s hooked into the main system. People who come here say the place smells. It probably does, what with five Devil Dancers living right on top of each other – the Nest being the size it is, it’s not really up to holding a lot of people. But I don’t think I’ve noticed a smell for years. It’s home.
My gaze strays to the colours on the wall by my head. Abstract shapes in shades of red and green and black and gold. Yao’s mural. None of us are really sure what she’s painting – sometimes, I don’t even think she knows. The homemade tattoo ink she traded for might have been too old and toxic to go into skin, but it works great on the walls – even if Carver did complain that he’d been wanting to trade for a new wrench instead.
Amira tosses me a protein bar, and I catch it without thinking. “So, Riley,” she says, arranging herself on Carver’s chair. “Let’s hear why you’re carrying body parts. And how you know you’ve been carrying body parts.”
The gummy, chewy protein slabs taste faintly sweet and stick to the teeth in stubborn little clumps, but they keep you goin
g forever – after even one, you feel like you’ve had a full meal. They’re hard to come by, so we dig into them, washing them down with gulps of water from our stash. We prefer food we can get ourselves to anything from the mess halls; the food there is barely edible, cooked into mush, and some of the workers won’t let you eat if you don’t have a sanctioned job. Being a tracer doesn’t count.
Between bites, I tell them what happened – the chase, the ambush, Darnell, all of it. Amira doesn’t speak while she eats, using her left hand to take large bites of the protein bar. Her right hand rests on the workbench, and I notice that the stumps where her index and middle fingers used to be are raw and red. She’s been rubbing them again; most of the time, she doesn’t even realise she’s doing it. Her little souvenirs from the lower sector riots, years ago. From running the Core without a thermo-suit, going from Apogee to Apex via the sub-zero hell of the fusion reactor, carrying a bomb on a delay timer. Anarchists had set it up, but she managed to pull it free and run.
Frostbite might have taken her fingers, but after she jettisoned the bomb from the dock on the other side, Amira was a hero. She was offered a seat on the council, where her parents before her had sat. But I guess after running the Core, council politics don’t do it for you.
Hence the Dancers. Hence, us.
After a hundred years, it’s got a lot harder to replace or fix anything on the station, so transporting objects and messages is tougher than it used to be – especially with gangs waiting to snatch them. Tracers are the network that allows it to happen, and the Devil Dancers are among the best crews on Outer Earth. There are plenty of others, but under Amira’s leadership, we’ve developed a pretty solid rep.
When I finish my story, the crew sits in silence for a moment, and then everyone tries to talk at once. Carver and Yao are angrily demanding we bring the fight to Darnell, but Amira raises a hand, and they reluctantly calm themselves. Carver, muttering obscenities, turns back to his bench, grabbing his goggles and pulling them down roughly over his eyes, making his hair stick up in strange directions. Amira just stares at me, and this time there’s a flash of reproach in her eyes.
