Tracer

by Rob Boffard

  The man who fell on me barrels past, his face twisted in a rictus of terror. The catwalk gives another terrible noise, and this time I swear I hear the sound of shearing metal. The panic rises, boils over: the crowd is screaming now, forcing up against each other, people clawing others out of the way, desperate to escape. Below us, the floor has completely emptied, the crowd streaming into the corridors surrounding the gallery.

  30

  Darnell

  Free.

  Darnell’s body is stained with sweat and smoke. His ears are ringing, and he managed to twist his ankle when the explosion knocked him off his feet. It’s throbbing painfully, but he doesn’t care. He’s free.

  He doesn’t know how they got out of the gallery. He doesn’t even know where they are. He’s been following the guard, ducking under pipes and threading through deserted rooms and clambering across the monorail tracks. There’s a part of him that doesn’t want to trust the guard, that doesn’t want to trust anyone. But he keeps thinking back to the bomb, how the explosion tore the crowd apart like their bodies were made of paper. He keeps thinking back to how the guard worked quickly, undoing his restraints, pulling him along. No, he can trust his sleepers.

  They stop near a ganglia of gurgling pipes. The only light comes from two slits in the wall, no bigger than a man’s finger. They must be near one of the corridors; Darnell can hear thundering feet, the sweet sound of panicked shouting.

  He collapses against the wall, amazed at how thirsty he is. The guard stays on his feet. He digs behind one of the pipes, and tosses Darnell a canteen. Darnell flips the top off, drinking greedily.

  “We did it, Sir,” says the guard. Darnell looks at him. He’s younger than he thought he was, with a mess of dirty blond hair and a face flushed with excitement. Briefly, Darnell wonders what happened in his past. Why he’s so eager. He’s not someone Darnell recruited – he’s just another node on the network, another flare point on the fuse.

  Darnell gets to his feet. “I need to get back to my office. There’s a—”

  “Way ahead of you, Sir.”

  The guard produces a tab screen from inside his jacket, and hands it over. Darnell has to hide his surprise; it’s the one that he had specially modified. The stubby antenna on the side gives him wireless access to Outer Earth’s comms system – with it, he can broadcast at any time. But there’s no way the guard could have known about it.

  Darnell glances at the man, then back to the screen. “You went into my office?”

  “Yeah,” the guard says. “I was one of the stompers who got told to search it. Thought a tab screen might come in handy. Got this for you, too.” He passes Darnell his knife – the thick-handled wedge of steel that Darnell had previously asked the poor tech to sharpen up for him.

  “Nice blade,” the guard says.

  Darnell stares at him. “You’ve been busy.”

  The guard returns his stare. “I’m just trying to help, Sir. We’re doing a good thing. Without human beings, the biosphere can recover. You’re saving the world, and … and I’m behind you, Sir, you know what I mean? Hundred per cent.”

  Darnell ignores the rhetoric. But as the man speaks, he glances towards the corridor, to the slits that lead to the outside world. He doesn’t see Darnell reach up, doesn’t see the hand until it’s wrapped around his head.

  Darnell slams the guard’s head into the wall, again, again. With each hit, the guard’s struggles grow weaker, and the red patch on the wall grows bigger and bigger. Blood splatters Darnell’s thin prison jumpsuit.

  It’s over inside ten seconds.

  Darnell lets go. He waits a few moments, looking for any sign of life. Nothing.

  There, he thinks. Now the only one who knows where he is, is him.

  Working quickly, he strips the guard of his hard body armour, then his shirt, jacket and pants. The shirt is long-sleeved, made of a stretchy, artificial fabric, slightly loose on the guard’s body but fitting tightly across Darnell’s chest and shoulders. The jacket is too small for him, unable to zip closed, and the pants don’t quite reach his ankles, but they’ll be warmer than a prison jumpsuit. He’ll need that where he’s going. He tucks the knife in his waistband, behind his back.

  He looks down at the tab screen. In a moment, he’ll turn it on, accessing the comms. And then he can talk to everyone on Outer Earth, and tell them what’s coming next.

  31

  Riley

  Amira grabs me. She’s outwardly calm, but her eyes burn with adrenaline. She jerks her head in the direction of the railing, and I realise what she wants us to do. She, Carver and I grab the railing, and in one synchronised movement, hurl ourselves up and over.

  For a moment, I flashback to the job where I transported the eye to Darnell, when I threw myself off the Level 5 catwalk to escape the Lieren, and time seemed to stop. It seems like years ago. Decades. This time, there’s no silence, no peaceful floating sensation. Just the air rushing in my ears and the screams from the catwalk above.

  The Level 2 catwalk is directly below, flying up towards me. There’s a body sprawled on the catwalk, someone – man, woman, I don’t know – with a long grey coat, their right leg twisted at an impossible angle.

  This time, there’s no avoiding it. There’s no space, nowhere to get a clean landing. Nothing I can do. I bend my knees, throw my arms above my head and make contact, smashing right into the back of the prone body. I feel it spasm under my feet. Whoever it is cries out, and then I’m bouncing forwards, rolling, colliding with the railing and collapsing in an ugly heap of limbs.

  Amira has landed a little way along, managing – somehow – to avoid landing on anyone. Carver is nowhere to be seen, and my heart leaps into my throat. Where is he? Did he miss the catwalk completely? But then there’s a yell of pain, and I see a hand clenched onto the railing. Carver overshot the catwalk, and somehow managed to grab the rail and check his fall.

  Amira reaches down, grabbing Carver under both arms and hauling him over the railing. Carver falls to the ground. His breathing is too regular, as if he’s having to will each breath out of his lungs, and he’s clutching his arm. His face is deathly white. Amira crouches down. “Dislocated,” he says, spitting the word out through gritted teeth.

  At that moment, the Level 3 catwalk that we just jumped from gives one last deep, rending screech, and the side furthest from us sheers off from the wall.

  “Oh shit,” says Carver.

  The far edge of the falling catwalk smashes into ours with a dull boom, throwing us off our feet again. The catwalk collides with the railing, crushing it. It’s still attached to the wall at the far side, and people are sliding down it, falling off the sides, screaming, smashing on the burned ground below. Above and behind me, I can see the side still connected to the wall beginning to come away, the rivets beginning to twist and turn, jiggling loose.

  Fear surges through me, and I leap to my feet, reaching out and grabbing both Carver and Amira and pulling them forwards. “Move!” I yell. The siren is screaming again. We run.

  Carver is swearing in pain. Around us, the gallery destroys itself in a whirlwind of screaming, shredded metal. We’re barely feet from the corridor entrance ahead when the near side of the Level 3 catwalk rips free, separating from the wall with one final ear-splitting screech. I grab Carver and Amira, and throw us all forwards into the corridor ahead. I get a split-second glimpse of the people still on the catwalk before the falling slab of metal collapses onto them. It bounces upwards, falls back down with another bone-shattering boom, then slides off and crashes to the floor below.

  We tumble to the floor, our chests heaving. I’m soaked in sweat, my mouth too dry, the blood in my ears pumping almost as loud as the siren. Carver has gone silent, his eyes tightly shut, his fingers twisted into half-fists. The lights in the corridor are flickering madly, casting dancing shadows across the wall. The sirens pause, and the emergency message repeats itself. Fire in Gardens sector.

  Amira is kneeling next to Car
ver, gingerly testing his shoulder. I open my mouth to say something, but she cuts me off, pointing down the corridor in the direction of Gardens. “Go!” she screams. I force myself to my feet, and take off, at full speed almost at once, not looking back.

  It’s the most terrifying run of my life. The panic has become a living thing, coursing through the corridors and catwalks like poison through veins. Stompers are everywhere, shouting over the sirens, yelling at people to keep calm. There’s stinger fire, both in the distance and, once, shockingly close, where I come up a level to see a stomper draw a bead on a man in a dirty white vest. I’m just in time to see the man raise his arms, the look of surprise on his face, before the stinger goes off and blood blooms on his chest. The stomper senses movement behind him and swings around, but I’m gone, barely pausing, my arms pumping and that sour taste of fear flooding my mouth. I can’t lose Prakesh again.

  Several times, I nearly fall, barrelling round a corner too fast or not spotting a group of people until it’s almost too late. I manage to keep my balance, flying through Apogee and then through Chengshi, my chest burning, a stitch ripping at my side. Halfway there, it occurs to me that I sent Grace Garner to the Air Lab to meet Prakesh, and I’m speared by a realisation that I may have sent her to her death.

  No. She wouldn’t have had time to even get out of the sector before the bomb went off, let alone make it to Gardens. She could be anywhere.

  Not far now, barely five minutes away, up through the stairwells, cut through the Chengshi mess hall and the schoolrooms, take that shortcut down into the service passage by the Level 2 corridor …

  And then I turn the corner, and ahead of me is the Lieren with a red wolf tattooed on his neck.

  32

  Prakesh

  The fire consumes Deakin instantly.

  There’s no explosion, no concussive blast, but the wave of bitter heat is enough to knock Prakesh backwards. Deakin’s entire body lights up, and for a second, Prakesh can see his face, staring out of a corona of flame. The tear-tracks on Deakin’s cheeks boil away.

  Then he’s gone, his body writhing, and the fire is reaching out, sucking up every molecule of oxygen, becoming its own fuel source as it spreads. It moves faster than anything Prakesh has ever seen. Liquid waves of it curl up and over the greenhouses, puddle across the floor.

  Prakesh runs.

  The greenhouses explode behind him, popping with a sound that echoes around the hangar. The air is filling with smoke – hot, sickening, thick, burning his throat and scratching at his eyes. All he can think of is what they were taught in school: the worst thing that can happen in a space-borne module is fire. In an enclosed area like Outer Earth, it can destroy everything. A little one can be contained, controlled. This is not a little one.

  The suppressors activate. He can hear their metallic whine above the roaring fire and screaming techs. The foam is meant to retard the fire and cut off its oxygen, but the burning chemicals slice right through the slick white foam, fizzling it out of existence.

  Heat licks at the back of his neck. Techs are streaming past him, running for the main doors. One of them trips ahead of him, sliding across the plate flooring, her hands scrabbling at it. Prakesh reaches down and grabs her under the arm, hauls her to her feet an instant before she gets trampled.

  And as he does so, he gets a look at the door between the Air Lab and the Food Lab.

  It’s supposed to shut if there’s a fire. The sensors are meant to seal it automatically. But it’s wide open. Maybe Deakin sabotaged the sensors, or maybe they broke down years ago. Prakesh doesn’t know, and right then, he doesn’t care. He can see the trees through the opening, the air processors arranged in tiered banks on the far wall of the Air Lab. If the fire reaches them …

  Prakesh pushes the tech towards the doors. She tries to pull him with her, pleading wordlessly, but he’s already moving. He bolts sideways down the greenhouses, the stores to his left – the entire structure nothing more than a burning shell. His throat is stripped raw, slashed to ribbons by the smoke.

  There are Air Lab techs running for the doors – they’ve seen what he’s seen, but they’re too far away. A jet of fire appears around the edge of a greenhouse, questing like a snake, spitting black smoke. Prakesh dodges to the side, nearly loses his balance, holds it. He can feel his hair singeing, the smell scorching the inside of his skull.

  The controls to shut the doors are on a large panel on the right of them. Prakesh slams into it at full speed, hammers on it like he’s trying to bust through the wall. Liquid fire is spreading across the floor, heading right for the gap, seeking fresh air.

  This isn’t just ammonium nitrate, Prakesh thinks. On some level, he’s stunned at how rational the thought is. As if the fire were nothing more than an experiment, something that could be quantified by a DNA thermocycler or a pH monitor.

  With a groan, the doors judder closed, seconds before the fire reaches them. Prakesh has no way to tell if they’ll hold. He’s got to get out of here, got to reach the main doors before—

  With a giant bang, one of the greenhouses behind him pops open. The shockwave knocks him off his feet, slamming into the wall and peppering him with shards of molten plastic. He’s surrounded on all sides by the fire, its tendrils reaching out for him.

  The doors, he thinks. I closed the doors; that’s all that—

  33

  Riley

  There are three Lieren – Tattoo, the lanky one who looked into my pack, and someone else I don’t know, a kid so short he’s practically a dwarf. They’re standing in the middle of the cramped corridor, hands on hips, breathing hard. I catch sight of the white hospital-issue box under the dwarf’s arm. They’ve been busy.

  I see a look of startled recognition on Tattoo’s face. But I’m not stopping, or even slowing down. Instead, I push my body into a sprint. I jump, taccing off the wall for height, springing right towards them. Tattoo gets out a “Hey—” before my outstretched foot crashes into his face.

  His nose shatters. His head snaps backwards, throwing up blood in a fine spray. The other two Lieren are reaching for me, but I’m moving too fast, my momentum carrying me through. As I tuck for landing, Tattoo gives off a strangled, squawking cry, flailing his arms. I land, roll, spring up and run without looking back.

  I can hear a thin mewl of pain from Tattoo as he clutches his destroyed nose, and above it, pounding footsteps and angry cries behind me as the others give chase. But they’re going from a standing start. I’m already back at full speed, vanishing into the corridors, and after a moment their cries fade into the background.

  I tilt my head forwards, and force my screaming muscles to go faster. Scared and exhausted as I am, I feel myself smiling. Gods, that felt good.

  It doesn’t take me much longer to get there. I’ve come into the gallery on the Level 1 catwalk. It’s chaos down below. Dumar, Chang and about ten stompers are trying to hold back a rapidly growing crowd. The huge doors are open – both the main one, and the smaller one inside the decontamination chamber – and what’s beyond them is hell: a black, smoking, burning wilderness, scattered with flecks of fire and foam. I can hear a man shouting, yelling about salvaging food. Techs are stumbling out of the doors; Prakesh isn’t among them.

  I have to get inside. I have to find him. I force myself to calm down, to breathe, sucking in huge gulps of air.

  And then I see her: a woman with fiery red hair, bent double with hacking coughs. She’s come out of the main doors and is standing off to one side, away from the stompers. Her once-white lab coat is now black and streaky with soot, and her hair is matted and dark. I know her. She’s one of Prakesh’s colleagues, and she was at the party we had in the Nest. What’s her name? I know it … Suki. It’s Suki.

  The idea is fully formed before I realise it’s there. I ignore the stairs at the far end, jumping the rail and dropping to the floor below. The catwalk is no more than a few feet up, and with a quick roll, I’m on my feet again. I can feel my back a
ching in protest against the rolls I’ve been forcing it to do, but I ignore it. I can worry about that later.

  I skirt the crowd, working my way towards Suki. I can hear Chang shouting in his nasal voice: “Please! We can’t let anybody in!”

  Nobody notices me. They’re all focused on the entrance, which is now billowing thick white smoke. I glance up; the top of the gallery is gone, invisible in a white fog. Suki is still bent double when I reach her, shivering, her arms crossed in front of her. Her face under the streaks of soot is deathly pale.

  “Suki,” I say, skidding to a halt. She looks up, but shock has wiped her eyes clean. I repeat her name, and after a moment she nods slowly, as if only just realising that I’m talking to her.

  “Suki, where is Prakesh?” I say slowly, emphasising every word. When she doesn’t respond, I grab her shoulders, arresting her panicked gaze. “Suki, look at me. Where is Prakesh? Did he come out with you? Is he here?

  “Prakesh, he …” She trails off. Her voice is roughly ringed with smoke. I stay silent, looking her in the eyes. Frustration is boiling through me, and it’s all I can do not to start shaking her back and forth, screaming in her face.

  Her eyes focus, snapping back to life. “Prakesh! He’s in there. He’s still in there!” She pulls away and begins running towards the doors, but I reach out and snag her back. She gives an incoherent yell, trying to shake me off, but I hold firm.

  “Listen to me, Suki,” I say. I’m hissing now, holding the terror back at knifepoint. “You need to get me inside.”

  She doesn’t seem to hear me. “But we’ve got to get Prakesh!” She’s screaming now, fear coursing through her voice. “Someone’s got to go back in and get Prakesh!” she repeats, as if saying his name will cause him magically to pop into existence.