by Rob Boffard
Pain lances through him, driving a pointed tip through his torn ear, his shoulder, the scabbing burn on his arm. He growls in anger. After he was shot, the pain felt like it belonged to someone else. Now it’s everywhere, ferocious, biting. He can’t get away from it.
He should be savouring these last few hours, using the control room to create as much fear as possible. Instead, he’s obsessing over Hale. The stompers who came through the Core provided a momentary distraction, but she keeps returning to the front of his mind. He knows that she’s a minor threat at best, that she can’t run forever, but it doesn’t help. The fact that he can’t do anything about her is infuriating. It makes him feel useless.
Like before.
And in the years following the controlled burn, he was useless. He was placed with different families. He had counsellors. But those years are a dark, indistinct smudge – he doesn’t remember a single thing anyone said to him.
Darnell didn’t feel sorry about his mother – she would have died soon anyway, and at least this way she’d been useful. Why couldn’t they understand that? Why couldn’t they see that the plants were just doing what was needed to exist?
He tried to rationalise it, tried to understand why they’d destroyed the plants, and why nobody had stopped them. He couldn’t. It was too big, a monstrous truth that he couldn’t comprehend.
And it wasn’t just the plants in his hab. The Earth below them was wrecked, its environment destroyed. Humans had done that too. And they didn’t learn. Even as they clung to existence, spinning around the Earth, they committed the same mistakes.
Darnell was a minor when he was put into the system. When he was eighteen, in accordance with Outer Earth law, his record was wiped clean. He moved to a distant sector, where no one recognised him. By that time, he had his size, and he found work in the Food Lab, toting sacks of fertiliser. It was there that he had his revelation, which arrived so suddenly that it stopped him in his tracks, the sack he was carrying swaying in his grip.
He would fix it.
A species that could destroy something so pure and beautiful didn’t deserve the world they were given, so Darnell would take it away from them. Without humans, nature would reclaim the Earth. It would take millennia, but that didn’t matter.
There would be no place for him in that world, either. When he realised that, the relief was exquisite, like he’d been thirsty for years and had finally found cool water.
He would have to be careful. Blend in, make contacts, accumulate power and influence. It would be immensely difficult. If his plan was going to work, it would need to be total – not a single human survivor could be left alive. He would have to wipe out Outer Earth in one go. He accepted that there was little he could do about the asteroid catcher ships, but without Outer Earth to sustain them, where would they go? The humans on board would die too, even if it took a little longer.
And it had worked. His patience, his self-control, had all been worth it. In a matter of hours, Outer Earth would be utterly destroyed. Hale couldn’t stop that, no matter what she did. So why is he fixating on her? What keeps him watching the screens?
“We don’t have much time left.”
Okwembu is behind him; her mouth is set in a thin line.
Darnell ignores her. He’s still scanning the screens.
“I know there’s no point treating those wounds,” she says. “But I can give you something for the pain, if you like.”
Darnell opens his mouth to tell her that he’s fine, but his eyes are drawn to movement on the feed. He quickly maximises the camera, zooming in.
Something is happening at the core entrance in Apogee.
64
Riley
“Ten stompers,” says Carver. “This isn’t a break-in, Riley, it’s suicide.”
I bite my lip, staring at the entranceway to the Core. We’re off to one side, in the shadows of the corridor. We managed to run up the levels without encountering too much resistance; there was a group of teens looking for a fight, but they weren’t armed, and even undermanned we got through them easily. Now, as I stare into the room, half of me is tempted to agree with Carver. But with less than ten hours left before Darnell destroys everything, we don’t have a choice.
The entrance is pretty much as I remember it: a massive open space, stacked with pallets for transporting equipment. The walls are lined with rows of lockers, each capped with an oversized keypad. There’s no overhead lighting. Instead, harsh spotlights at floor level point upwards at the roof, directed at the colossal blast doors themselves. They take up nearly the whole ceiling, reaching from one wall to the other. The seal between the two halves is like a giant set of metal teeth, decayed with age until each tooth is black with rust. The doors aren’t flush with the roof, but sit slightly below it. Painted across them in enormous black letters are the words Reactor Access.
I can see the control panels on either side of the room. I’d like to get a closer look, but even if I could understand the readouts – about as likely as being able to grow eyes in the back of my head – there’s no way I’d get near them. The stompers in the room are on edge, pacing back and forth. It doesn’t look as if anybody has tried to breach their defences yet, but from the way they’re fingering their guns I’d guess they’re expecting an attack any minute.
And now, it seems, their first one’s going to come from three exhausted tracers. Lucky them. They’ll probably see it as a warm-up.
Kev squats down next to me, whispers, “Still think this is a good idea?”
“Not really. But it’s the only one we’ve got. You ready to go?”
He grunts, hefting his backpack.
“Remember,” Carver says to him. “The second it kicks off, hit the ground. They’ll be shooting, and you’ll be the last thing they see.”
Kev nods. I busy myself with pulling on the gloves Carver gave me. They’re thick, made of a stiff outer material stuffed with shreds of old fabric. They’re too big for my hands. I give them an experimental flex, dismayed to find that I have to exert real effort to make even a clumsy fist. Climbing with these on is going to be nearly impossible. But they’ll protect my fingers from the cold. What happened to Amira won’t happen to me. In more ways than one.
There’s a dirty black scarf wrapped around my neck. I’ve already padded myself out under my jacket, pulling on two of Carver’s shirts and a hooded top belonging to Kev. The clothing is threadbare, barely holding itself together. The under-layer is soaked in sweat from the run. I’m worried that the sweat might freeze, drawing body heat, but I can’t think about that now. It’d be great if I had a full thermo-suit to wear, but it’d just slow me down. For now, I’ll have to live with the discomfort.
“Last chance to back out, Riley,” says Carver.
I shake my head. My heart is thudding in my chest, and there’s a curious metallic taste in my mouth. But I push it away, forcing myself to focus. “We’re doing this,” I say.
“I always knew being a tracer would get me killed,” says Kev. And with that, he stands and walks straight into the room. I have to remind myself to breathe.
Kev walks slowly, his hands up, his pack hanging loosely from his shoulders. The stomper nearest to us – a stocky woman with a ponytail – looks up at the sound of footsteps. “Stop!” she barks. In half a second, she and every other stomper in the room have their guns out and locked on Kev.
He gives a nervous smile, his hands raised above him. “Cargo delivery,” he says. “Speed run from the mess. Someone sending up food for you.”
The first stomper’s expression doesn’t change, but behind her I see a couple of the others lower their guns very slightly, their expressions hopeful. My guess was good: they’ve been up here for hours, maybe days, and chances to eat will have been slim. A shipment of food would be a welcome prospect.
I’m almost sorry that we’ll have to disappoint. Almost.
“Since when did the mess start using tracers for food deliveries?” says the first sto
mper.
Kev shrugs, and I marvel at how calm he seems. “Not my problem,” he replies. “But if I go back, they probably won’t bother sending another one.” At this, the stompers glance at each other nervously. I can almost hear their stomachs rumbling. Still the woman with the ponytail doesn’t move.
“Tell you what,” says Kev. “I’ll take out the cargo, and put it on the floor. Nice and easy.” He keeps his hands raised, not wanting to provoke.
After a long minute, the woman says, “Take off the pack.”
Kev slowly reaches behind him, pulling the pack off his shoulders and holding it out in front of him at arm’s length. The stomper nods. “Good. Take the cargo out,” she says.
“OK,” says Kev. And tears out the hidden panel at the bottom of the bag.
The chemicals inside react to the air immediately. Kev hits the deck just as the lead stomper fires, but his body has already vanished into the huge, billowing cloud of smoke gushing from the pellets.
This was what Carver had been working on when he locked me out of the Nest for kicks. Turns out he’d been trying to build this smoke system, hoping to give us an extra escape route if we ever ran into trouble. He’d been struggling with it, not able to get the formula right. But it turned out that quicksleep – the stuff Arthur Gray used to grab his victims – was the missing ingredient. Distil it down, add a few other chemicals into it, then combine it with Carver’s original recipe. Expose it to air, and you’ve got something that could easily help a Dancer evade someone hunting them.
With the quicksleep, and the scraps he and Kevin managed to scrounge from the Nest, there was just enough left to make a single batch. It took Carver less than twenty minutes to mix the chemicals and transfer them to a pack, storing them inside a modified water container. He had to do it pretty quickly to stop smoke filling up the hab, but he managed it.
We dash from our hiding places into the noxious smoke, the room filling with confused shouts and gunfire. It’s clear that for a few seconds at least, we won’t be noticed. We’ve got scarves wrapped around our faces, but the thick smoke still worms its way in, burning my throat. I sprint towards where I think the control panel is, and a bullet ricochets off the floor in front of me; I duck, but keep running, heading towards the far end of the room.
There’s a yell from behind me. Carver? No way to tell. The smoke is everywhere now, filling the room; a stomper materialises out of the gloom in front of me, his gun raised, but I’m moving too fast. I clock him across the throat, and he gives a loud, strangled cry as he flies backwards. His gun fires, the bullet dancing off the ceiling. I wince, but keep running.
A split second later, I slam into the wall, my fingers bending back painfully where they’ve made contact. I bite back a cry of pain, not wanting to give away my position. I force my throbbing fingers to feel along the wall to my right, hoping desperately that I’ve picked the right direction.
It’s impossible to see now. I’m breathing too fast, inhaling too much smoke, expecting a bullet in the back at any second. But then the surface under my fingers changes, from cold metal to the smooth glass of a screen, and I know I’ve found the control panel. My hands feel downwards, exploring the panel. It juts out of the wall at waist height, a bank of buttons capped with the screen, which I can now see glowing dimly through the smoke.
I dig into my pocket, fighting with the thick gloves, and pull out Carver’s second gadget.
It’s almost too simple to work. A tiny plastic box, filled with a small blob of explosive putty. Inside the box, above the putty and pointing right at it, is a short spike. On its tip, another chemical, harmless – until you place the box on a flat surface and slam your hand onto the lid, driving the spike into the putty, combining the chemicals. Then you have about a second to dive away before the explosion takes your hand off.
When the bang comes, it’s so loud that my hearing goes completely, leaving nothing but a ringing that burrows into my skull. I’ve thrown myself to the side, away from the explosion. It’s small, but bright and hot, and enough to blow a hole the size of a man’s head in the control panel. A moment later, I feel a second thud reverberate around the room. Carver must have detonated his own device.
My hearing slowly comes back. The room is louder now, filled with the terrified shouts from the stompers, telling each other to fall back. I want to yell that they’re not under attack, that we don’t mean to hurt them, but with the smoke and the explosions, I think I’d just earn myself a volley of stinger bullets. Lying on the ground, my ears throbbing and my lungs burning with hot smoke, a tiny thought in the back of my mind says that this is absolutely the worst idea ever.
And then I hear it. A high-pitched mechanical whine.
The blast doors are opening.
I jump to my feet, and start running, ignoring the nausea brought on by the smoke. It occurs to me that I have no idea how you actually get through the doors: does a ladder drop down? Stairs? I curse myself for not thinking about it before. I’m looking upwards through the smoke, searching for the opening. But then, no more than five seconds after the doors started opening, the sound changes: it gets lower, more throaty. As if …
My heart sinks. The doors are closing. Some fail-safe, some little electronic gatekeeper, has kicked in, and there’s no way of telling how far the doors opened before they started to shut.
A figure explodes out of the fog. It’s Carver, blood pouring down his face, mouthing something I can’t hear. He has to say it twice before I hear him: “Jump!”
Without breaking my stride, I push off with my left leg, launching myself upwards. At the same time, Carver drops to one knee, cupping his left hand under my foot. My body acts before I can think about it, and I push into his hand even as he forces me upwards, my own arm raised. He cries out, putting every ounce of effort he can into pushing me up with his one arm. I force my eyes to stay open in the stinging smoke, hunting for an opening.
The edge of the door takes me in the forearms, almost causing me to fall backwards, but I swing my arms down, and then I’m hanging from the blast doors by my elbows. The whine is louder now, burrowing into my head. If I can’t pull myself up, the doors will cut me in two.
My legs are dangling in space, and at any second I expect a bullet to slice through them. But Carver hasn’t let go of my foot, and he starts pushing upwards, standing, lifting me from below. Groaning with the effort, I haul my way upwards: first my chest, then my waist, and then my legs are up and over. I catch a brief glimpse of Carver’s face through the gap in the blast doors: soaked red with the blood, but with eyes burning bright. Then the doors slam shut with a huge, echoing boom.
The silence is instant and total. As I lie there, in the semidarkness, the cold starts to seep in, tongues of ice licking at my exposed skin.
65
Darnell
“She’s inside,” Oren Darnell says.
His voice is even, quiet, controlled. He grips the back of one of the chairs, his eyes fixed intently on the screen. The camera is looking down on the Core doors. It shows Hale, getting to her feet, hugging herself tightly. On the screen, the clouds made from her breath are grey pixels, blocky and stuttering.
Okwembu stands in the doorway to the control room, arms folded.
Darnell throws the chair. It crashes across the control room, knocking over other chairs as it goes. Okwembu doesn’t respond, not even when Darnell walks right up to her. His body is drenched in sweat and blood.
“She’s tenacious, I’ll give her that,” Okwembu says.
“We have to shut her out.”
Okwembu shrugs. “The stompers disabled the lock. We can close the doors, but we can’t seal them.”
“She knows the damn code. If she were to get in the control room—”
“But she won’t,” Okwembu says wearily. “She isn’t wearing a thermo-suit. She’ll freeze solid before she gets within a mile of here. And if she does somehow make it through, she’ll be far too weak to fight.”
Okwembu’s eyes glitter, and Darnell sees something in them that he hasn’t seen before. Something like excitement.
“We can kill her together. In front of everyone. And then we can tell them what’s coming.”
Darnell starts laughing, and once he does, he finds that he can’t stop. It comes from somewhere deep inside him – an awful, hacking noise, as if a malignant tumour has come loose in his chest. He lifts the knife, points it at Okwembu. His shoulder wound has started bleeding again, and he can feel it throbbing, a deep ache that won’t go away.
“You’ve never killed anyone in your life,” he says, between gusts of laughter. “You even had me suck the oxygen out of that amphitheatre for you. You don’t deserve to kill her.”
“If you go in there, you put yourself at risk. But if we meet her here, she’ll have two of us to deal with. Let her come to us.”
Darnell considers it, but only for a second. Every iota of hatred he possesses has focused down into this one thing. He’s not going to let her come. He’s going to fix it. He’s going to fix her.
He steps past Okwembu, and only stops when she puts a hand on his arm.
“You’re hurt,” she says, gesturing at his mangled shoulder. “It’ll only slow you down in there. If you’re going to go, then at least let me give you something for the pain.”
Darnell looks down. Okwembu is slipping the cap off a syringe, filled with clear liquid. She moves to slide his sleeve up, and that’s when he knocks her arm aside. The syringe explodes against the wall.
“It’s butorphanol,” she says, raising her hands. “Pain meds. That’s all. Just—”
Darnell hits her.
Okwembu goes down, collapsing on all fours. Darnell steps over her, striding down the passage. It’s only when he reaches the stairs that he wonders if he should kill her. He half turns back, then stops himself, because all he can see is Riley Hale. Okwembu isn’t important. There’s nothing she can do to him.
