Tracer

by Rob Boffard

  “Nice,” she says when I’ve finished, turning back to her stretching.

  How long has it been since I’ve seen a smile from Amira? That, too, seems like years. In the time I’ve known her, I can only think of a few times when I’ve genuinely pleased her.

  We met a year after my dad died. I was thirteen. For a year, my mum struggled on. I had to watch her getting sadder and sadder. And then one day, she just gave up, and I was alone.

  That was when I left school. I dropped out for a few months, scavenging food, doing odd jobs, sleeping in storage rooms or under tables in the cold passages.

  They came when I was sleeping in a passage on the bottom level of Chengshi, curled up with my head tucked into the crook of my arm. There were at least four of them, hard men with worn faces. I recognised them as soon as they pulled me into the middle of the corridor: merchants. I’d managed to steal some food that day – it was one of the few times I didn’t go to sleep on an empty stomach.

  I screamed and shouted and cried, but nobody came. And they were silent: lips tight, faces hard, as if I was nothing more than a piece of machinery which had broken down once too often and needed to be fixed with anger and a firm hand. The only sound was my screams as they dragged me down the corridor. I lashed out at them with my feet, but they batted them away, like they were nothing.

  And then Amira was there, a whirlwind of fists and elbows and blades, smashing and cutting and breaking. I remember being amazed at how fast she was. The man holding my right arm went down first, a red slash exploding at his throat as Amira whipped her blade across it. The others ran at her, shouting, but in moments they were down, with arms twisted the wrong way and deep cuts already turning the floor a dark red.

  When it was over, Amira paused for a moment, silhouetted in the lights above, breathing hard. She tucked the blade back into her pocket, then reached out a hand to me.

  We lived together, we trained together, we got hurt together. I was her first Dancer, and she taught me everything: how to run, how to move through crowds, how to land. How to fight. How to find jobs, which ones to take and which ones to refuse. And how to never get caught again. By anyone.

  “Get going,” she says, gesturing to the door. “Jobs don’t wait, you know.”

  Usually, if I have to take a job right after I wake up, my body feels slow and clumsy. But not today. I’m pulling off flawless moves and hitting the mark on every jump I make, even putting a little flair on a couple of wall passes. At one point, I jump down an entire set of stairs, taking a running leap off the top step and grabbing a roof strut before swinging into space, my head up and my arms thrown above and behind me, and landing so perfectly I don’t even have to roll. The move feels so good I burst out laughing, and a man sitting on the steps behind me applauds. I wave and take off again, losing myself in the movement.

  The hospital’s not too far from the Nest. They’re regular clients; while most sectors keep to themselves, hospitals across the entire station tend to share equipment, sending supplies wherever they’re needed. A lot of our work comes from them – if we’re not ferrying the supplies themselves, then we’re delivering requests for them, going back and forth between the sectors.

  When I arrive, a doctor is deep in conversation with one of the nurses. They’re wearing scrubs that used to be white, and like every doctor I’ve ever seen, they look barely alive. He looks up and sees me; his black hair, like his tunic, has turned silvery grey, and his face is lined with worry. But he smiles, and beckons me over.

  “I’m Doctor Arroway,” he says and holds out his hand. I give it a quick shake; the palm of his hand is rough, like old rust.

  “You had some cargo you needed delivering?” I say.

  The doctor reaches behind him, picking up a squat white box from the table. “That’s right. We’ve got a box of—”

  I clear my throat, and he looks up, puzzled. Then he nods. “Of course, sorry – I forget that you prefer not to know. But really, it’s nothing bad. Are you sure?”

  “Positive.”

  He sighs. “OK. Just get it there in one piece. There’s a doctor at the hospital in New Germany, name of Singh. It’s got to get to him fast. He’s got some people in the isolation rooms who need it ASAP.”

  “You’re talking to the right person,” I say, taking the box and dropping it into my pack. “So. What’s in it for us?”

  He looks at me, his arms folded. “You know, what you’re carrying is going to save lives. Maybe a lot of lives. This doesn’t have to be difficult.”

  I return his stare. “Actually, it does. No fee, no delivery, so make me an offer.” I hate negotiating. I’m much more comfortable when the price is set beforehand. But it’d be worse to bring back nothing, or something that wasn’t worth the trip.

  He sighs irritably. “Fine. I’ll give you a box of painkillers. Not the good stuff, by any means, but with your job, they’ll probably come in handy.”

  “Make it the good stuff. It’s a long run.”

  He rolls his eyes. After rummaging in a wall unit behind him, he hands me a small white box. I shake it. It gives a reassuring rattle, and I stuff it into the inside pocket of my jacket.

  On the way out, a man seated in a battered chair, who up until now looked like he was unconscious, calls out my name. His beard reaches to his chest like a grey river, and he has a nasty-looking bloody bandage wrapped around his left hand. “Go get ’em,” he says, shaking his hand in the air; a couple of blood drops spatter the floor. I dodge back, laughing.

  From the chatter I hear in the stairwells, Darnell’s trial is in a couple of hours’ time, in the Apogee gallery. Better there than in Gardens, where things might get hairy. The gangs Darnell was in with might be reeling a little, like Royo said, but it’s not unheard of for people to disrupt trials – sometimes violently. I make a mental note to be as far away as possible. By now, the eyeball is common knowledge, too. It was found in Darnell’s office, and was logged and incinerated by the stompers. Apparently, it was already beginning to decay.

  By the time I hit the New Germany border, the corridors have become even more crowded. People mill in large groups, leaning up against walls thick with rust and dirt. There’s no sign here like there is at the Gardens border – just the supports where one used to hang, jutting down from the ceiling.

  Despite the crowds, I make it to the hospital in good time. The doctor, Singh, gives me a brief nod, nothing more, and locks the package away in a heavy steel cabinet. He looks distracted, glancing back towards the exam rooms. His hospital is much busier than the one I was in before, and the low groans of patients fill the air, slipping out of the darkened wards like oil from a worn seal. My good mood feels dampened here, smothered.

  As I turn to go, there’s a hand on my arm, and I turn to see the grey bulk of a stomper. His face is a perfect blank. Surprised, I try to jerk my arm away, but his grip holds.

  “What?” I say. “Did I do something wrong? You got any problems, you can take it up with my crew leader …”

  His expression hasn’t changed; he looks like he could stand there all day if he had to. It’s then that I notice the red patch near his shoulder, in the shape of the station’s silhouette, and a little worm of fear coils in my stomach. He’s no stomper. Red patches belong to the elite units who guard the council.

  His grip gets firmer. “Ms Hale. Janice Okwembu would like a word.” His voice is monotone, as immovable as the walls around us.

  The head of the council? I’m too shocked to resist, and he starts to walk me towards the wards. I find my voice: “Then why aren’t we going to Apex?” But he ignores me, pulling me down the central corridor between the curtained-off wards.

  25

  Riley

  There are more guards here, not lounging against the walls like a regular stomper might, but standing bolt upright, eyes scanning the corridor.

  One of them turns to us: “Is this her?” he says. The other guard nods, and releases me.

  By now, t
he anger I first felt has been replaced by curiosity: what is Janice Okwembu doing here? And why does she want to see me? I’ve never even seen her in person. She occasionally comes down to the lower sectors, but not when I’ve been there. And I’ve never been up to Apex – not once, not even to do a delivery. They keep it pretty secure; when you’ve got the council chamber and the main station control room there, you try to keep most people out if you can.

  The guard beckons me towards one of the curtains, and pulls it aside. In the dim light, I can just make out Janice Okwembu. She’s leaning over a bed, whispering to an old man. He’s heavily bandaged, with a thick gauze patch over his left eye. He doesn’t appear to be conscious, but Okwembu is whispering something to him. I can’t make out the words, and the guard motions me to wait, gesturing me back.

  After a moment, Okwembu bends down, and plants a kiss on the man’s cheek. She turns, and sees us standing in the entrance. “I knew him from long ago,” she says, gesturing to the old man in the bed. She moves with a controlled, gentle grace. “I shouldn’t really show favouritism to anybody, but I like to know that he’s being looked after.”

  I find my voice. “How did you know I was coming here?”

  She just smiles. Glancing at the guard, she says, “I believe the room next door is free. Could you please ask Dr Singh to turn up the lights there?” He nods, and turns smartly on his heels.

  Okwembu comes closer. The grey in her hair is more pronounced than it looks when I see her on the comms screen; she occasionally broadcasts messages, speaking on behalf of the council. It’s her eyes, however, that are the most striking: a pale green, almost white, and ringed with a feathered blue on the outer edge.

  She’s short, perhaps the same height as me, but even a cursory glance shows toned arms under the white jumpsuit. She catches my eye and laughs, an unexpectedly girly sound. “I try to keep in shape,” she says, placing a hand on the small of my back and guiding me out of the ward. “I was a computer technician once, and I realised I didn’t want to end up like my colleagues – fat and lazy.”

  She pulls open the curtains on the ward next door. The lights are up, and she gestures to two chairs in the corner, caked with a layer of dust. I take a seat – I half expect her to wipe down the chair, but she simply pauses for a moment before perching on the edge of it, hands clasped in her lap. Above us, the light flickers silently. With a start, I realise how unkempt I must look, with my scarred jacket and greasy hair. I have to force myself not to run a hand through it.

  “I wanted to congratulate you personally,” she says. I open my mouth to reply, but she raises a hand. “You did a very brave thing. I was horrified when I heard about Marshall Foster.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “Yes,” she says. “I joined the council while he was its leader. He was …” She pauses for a moment. “A friend.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You have nothing to apologise for,” she says. “I’ve been aware of your crew for some time, and of course we’ve always been grateful to Amira Al-Hassan for what she did.” I think of Amira’s missing fingers, her run through the Core all those years ago, and a little dark cloud settles on my heart.

  “Thanks, I guess,” is all I can come out with.

  She sits back, her lips pursed, as if deep in thought. “You could have gone to get help instead of going in. Most people would have. But not you.”

  “I wasn’t going to wait. If I’d gone to get help, Prakesh and Yao and Kevin would be dead too.” I trip over my words, realising she might not know who they are, but she just nods.

  “They’re lucky to know you,” she says, but there’s no warmth in her voice: it’s cool, calculating. “But then, you know what it’s like to lose someone.”

  It takes me a moment to form the words. “That was a very long time ago.”

  “Indeed. Seven years now. But what your father did – what he died doing – was nothing short of remarkable.”

  I can’t look at her. I was hoping that this year I was going to get away with not thinking about Earth Return. But with this, plus my unexpected visit to the Memorial, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

  If she sees my distress, she ignores it. “After your father … after the Akua Maru was lost, we struggled for a long time. This station was designed to support a fleet of ships, but the Akua was one of our best, and we took a hit when it was destroyed. Keeping morale up has been difficult.”

  “I know.”

  Okwembu raises a palm. “Please. Let me finish. People need something to gather around, and as the daughter of someone like John Hale, you might be just what they’re looking for. We were hoping you might testify at Darnell’s trial today.”

  “I’m not a political tool,” I say, surprising myself with the note of anger in my voice.

  She dips her head. “Of course. I wasn’t suggesting that.”

  “You want to make peace with the gangs and keep people happy, find someone else. Patch up the graffiti. Put plants back in the galleries. Do something about the mess food. Don’t use me.”

  Okwembu raises an eyebrow, and I tail off, but she doesn’t interrupt me, and doesn’t appear angry.

  “Well, I hope you’ll think about it,” she says after a long moment, her voice so soft I have to strain to hear her.

  We fall silent. After a few moments, I meet her gaze. “That’s not all, is it? You didn’t come down here just to ask me to testify.”

  “Actually, I came down here to visit a friend,” she says. “But since you mention it, there is something else.”

  She leans forward. “I need to know that you told the protection officers everything. If there’s something you held back, you need to let me know, and you need to do it now. Nothing will happen to you, but you must tell me. I can’t stress how important it is.”

  I shrug. “We did a job for him, and it didn’t feel right. He took my … Prakesh, and two of my crew. We tailed him, we got lucky. That’s all.”

  But she doesn’t sit back. “When we found Marshall’s body, one of his eyes was missing. We think it has something to do with why he wanted Foster out of the way, and whatever Oren Darnell was planning. I think you know about it too, Riley. And I think you haven’t been honest with us.” Her voice is still deathly quiet.

  I plaster disgust on my face, hoping that I’m not overdoing it. “I didn’t know that. His eye, I mean. Why? Why would Gray do that?”

  I can feel her pale gaze trying to reach in, as if she wants to dig around in my mind. Eventually, she sits back, her eyes still on me. “I know you and your friends sometimes take on jobs that involve carrying things that …” She pauses, choosing her words. “Well, let’s just say that sometimes what you do is not in the best interests of Outer Earth. We let the tracers exist because you perform a valuable service, and we know that by doing that, we risk that you might transport something dangerous. Something which we should perhaps know about.”

  The sweat on my face has dried to a thin crust, itching gently. I force myself to keep my hands in my lap. Her words aren’t a threat, not really, but there’s no mistaking the cold intent behind them.

  She continues. “I will be watching you, Ms Hale. You would do well to remember that nothing lasts forever.”

  Abruptly, she stands up, and gives me a curt nod before drawing the curtain aside. I rise to my feet, and I’m about to follow when she turns back. Her voice is cool, but business-like. “I’d like you to think some more about appearing at the trial.”

  I want more than anything for her to go, and I nod, which seems to satisfy her. She turns away, motioning for her guard to follow. The sound of their footsteps echoes in the wards as they march off, and I hear her exchanging a few words with Dr Singh. The warmth in her voice is back, as if she flicked a switch. I remain where I am, unable, for a moment, to move.

  I pull my jacket around myself, but the cold that I felt earlier refuses to vanish, running icy fingers up the back of my neck. I can’t help but
think back to when the man from the council came to see my mother and me in our little room in Apogee. I remember his uniform, a heavy grey tunic with red highlights, tight around the throat. The look of sorrow on his face as he told us about the massive explosion on atmosphere entry, the catastrophic reactor failure. That there would be no new colony on Earth, no terraforming, no resources to send home. That John Hale and his crew would not be coming back.

  26

  Darnell

  His hands are cuffed first, the thick metal bands ratcheting around his wrists in front of him. He has to put his hands through the slot in the plastic, then step back once he’s restrained. Two stompers hold his legs at the knees, a third holds his arms, and a fourth snaps ankle cuffs on. The chain between his wrists and ankles is too long, clattering the floor whenever he moves.

  They march Darnell out of his cell, one on each side. The stompers walk fast, and he struggles to match their long strides with his cuffed feet. He keeps his eyes focused on the floor in front of him, careful not to betray his excitement. He doesn’t even know which stomper is the guard who promised to free him. They wear full body armour, their faces covered by dark visors and thick, angular helmets.

  He can’t help grinning when they walk out into the corridors, past the crowds assembled outside the brig. There are dozens of them, and they’re all booing and jeering, shouting his name and laughing. Darnell scans the crowd. He’s looking for those who aren’t booing. Those who are watching intently.

  Darnell has been seeding sleepers in Outer Earth for over a year, tapping into the creeping network of the voluntary human extinction movement. The movement itself was a joke, something that was never going to be taken seriously, so it wasn’t difficult to find those who had become disillusioned with it.

  It was easier than Darnell would have imagined. These people were emotionally vulnerable, sick of waiting, sick of asking nicely. Even the ones who hadn’t considered doing what Darnell asked them to do were easily led in that direction. All he had to do was give them a little push.