Tracer

by Rob Boffard

  Darnell laughs again, turning away. He begins climbing the stairs.

  “Oren,” says Okwembu from behind him, her voice thick with pain. When he doesn’t respond, she says it more sharply. “Oren!”

  He barely hears her. Barely realises what he’s doing. All he can think about is how every step takes him closer to the Core.

  Closer to Hale.

  66

  Riley

  Every breath is visible, as dense as the smoke in the room below me – and every one I suck in cuts deep into my lungs. This isn’t like the cold I’ve felt in the Nest, when I’ve woken from a deep sleep with the blanket bunched around my feet. That you get used to. This is dry cold, ripped from the absolute zero of the vacuum, channelled and controlled to bring down the colossal heat of the fusion reactor and the superconducting cables that carry its power to the rest of the station.

  I’m at the bottom of an enormous cylinder, stretching upwards to infinity, lit with huge spotlights that nevertheless fail to cut through the gloom completely. I count six cables, each as thick as three men, spaced around the cylinder. There’s a catwalk, laid around the sides of the cylinder in front of the cables, curling steadily upwards like a coiled spring.

  I get to my feet. Six miles from here to Apex. If I can keep the pace up, it should take me about two hours to run the Core.

  Of course, I have to do it in sub-zero temperatures, and in a gravity that will get lower with every step.

  I head towards the ramp that leads to the catwalk, then stop. How do the Core techs get up there? After all, if you’re in a bulky thermo-suit, carrying heavy equipment, you aren’t going to walk upwards for three miles every time a pipe springs a leak.

  It takes me a moment to spot it, hidden in the shadows behind where I came in. An elevator. A golden ticket right to the top. I can’t help cracking a smile.

  My footsteps are loud in the vast space as I cross the room. The thought occurs to me that they might have found a way to shut down the elevator after I broke in, but it opens as I touch the button. The lights on the inside flicker to life, illuminating the cramped space. Under normal circumstances, it’d probably be a chore to ride in, but right now, I can’t get in there fast enough.

  I thumb the Up button, fighting to push it hard enough through my bulky gloves. Despite the padding, my hands are already numb, and my cheeks are throbbing gently, as if I’ve been slapped. I try to stay as still as possible, hoping to conserve energy. The elevator hums to life, and with an enormous clanking noise, begins to move slowly upwards. I hold my breath, expecting that at any moment it’ll shudder to a halt, and start downwards, where a group of heavily armed stompers will be waiting. But the lift keeps moving, slowly making its way up the tube. My chest is still warm, and my sweat-soaked undergarments don’t appear to have frozen.

  It occurs to me that this is the first time I’ve been by myself since I was locked in the brig in Apogee. There’s nobody to back me up: no Amira, no Prakesh, no Carver or Kev. And the higher the elevator gets, the further I go from everybody else.

  The Dancers would get a real kick out of this place. Imagine being able to run as you approach zero gravity. Amira would …

  I shut my eyes tight. I take Amira, and Yao, and Grace Garner, and put them in a very small place, deep in my mind. I force myself to do it, will them to stay silent. Later, I tell them. Later, when this is over, we can talk.

  At that moment, the lift gives a screeching sound and judders to a halt. I drop to the floor, out of sight, before I realise that there’s no way anybody could be aiming at me through the window. Slowly, I get to my feet, but I’m thrown off balance when the elevator jerks downwards. I panic, realising that they’ve managed to report the attack, the intrusion, and they’re bringing me back down.

  I hammer on the door release button. Nothing happens. There are two other buttons indicating up and down, alongside another button that looks like it activates a communicator. I’m about to press it, but stop, irritated with myself. Yes, Riley, confirm that you’re in the lift.

  I try to force the doors open, to push my fingers into the crack, but it’s useless with the gloves on. My heart sinks: I’ll have to take them off.

  I grasp one in my teeth, pull it upwards, shucking it from my hand. I do the other, then tuck both under my arm. My fingers are a pale white. Is it my imagination, or are they turning ever so slightly blue at the tips?

  No time. I jam my fingers into the door, hunting for a grip. The metal burns on contact, sending jabs of icy pain through my numb fingers. Ever so slowly, with a hideous creaking sound, the doors separate, and I wedge my body between them. I’m half in and half out of the lift, my hands screaming with pain, no more than a few feet above the catwalk surface.

  With a yell, I throw myself out of the lift, landing feet first on the ramp with a boom that reverberates around the shaft. One of my gloves under my arm flies forwards, bouncing towards the edge. A terrified gasp escapes my lips, and I dive forwards, scrabbling for it. My fingers grab it a moment before it flies off the ramp, into space. I lie there, breathing heavily through my nose. Behind me, the lift continues its downward path.

  I sit up, and shove the gloves back on. My hands are numb, way too numb. More panic begins to seep in, clouding my thoughts. I force myself to concentrate, trying to put what I need in order. I’m cold, so my body is pulling everything to its own core, diverting blood from my extremities. I need to get blood to my hands. I stand and begin swinging my arms. The tingling that returns to my hands a second later is almost worse than the numbness, but I grit my teeth, forcing myself to push through it. After a few spins, they start to feel a little warmer. Maybe I can get through this.

  It takes me a moment to notice the curious sensation in my arms. It’s as if, at the top of my windmill movement, I have to force my arms downwards, rather than letting momentum carry them through. And then a small wave of nausea rises in my stomach, and I realise: gravity. I’m starting to feel the onset of zero-G – or microgravity, anyway. The closer I get to the centre of the spinning ring, the less gravity there’ll be. I cast my eyes up the ramp, curling up the sides of the shaft, wondering what it will feel like.

  Only one way to find out. I start running.

  I have no idea how far I have to go before I reach the Core, but I start to feel the effect of the lower gravity on my running instantly. As with my arms, I have to force my feet downwards – I’m exerting less effort on the push-off with each stride, but far more to get it to stick. I try to adapt to the gravity, using it to conserve the energy at the start of each stride, and then release it at the end. But instead, I just tire a lot faster than normal. The nausea ebbs and flows; presumably, the protein bars I ate must be starting to bob around in my stomach. I want to laugh at the thought, but I’m breathing too hard, my breath forming soft clouds of condensation.

  After a few minutes, I stop for a rest beside one of the superconductor cables. I run my hand down the casing: it’s not metal, more like some kind of rubber, slightly springy to touch. I can feel it humming under my hand, pulsing with energy. Is this how Darnell and the Sons of Earth are planning to destroy us? Maybe they’ve got some kind of bomb in the reactor. Shut off the power, kill every light and air system and source of heat, turn the station into a tomb.

  I tell myself that I won’t let that happen.

  With a groan, I push myself off the cable, and start running again. The catwalk slopes upwards, running clockwise around the cylinder, spaced a little way from the wall to make room for the cables. The surface is perforated metal grating, uneven and sharp. Every time I take a step, the sound echoes back from the other side of the cylinder. There’s a railing on the outside of the catwalk; I trail my hand along it as I run, using it to steady myself against the lowering gravity. I might be running upwards in a circle, without any changes of direction, but I find that my torso keeps tilting too far forwards, threatening to tip me off balance. I have to pull it back consciously, and every time I do so,
it saps even more energy.

  And there’s an even stranger sensation: it’s like I’m constantly tilting towards the wall, as if I’m made of metal, and the wall is a giant magnet. It takes me a moment to work out what it is: the spinning motion of the ring. When I’m heading towards the centre, moving in low gravity, the spin will start to have an effect. I’ll be pushed up against one of the walls of the shaft. I can only hope it doesn’t slow me down too much.

  I stop again, my breathing ragged. The Core’s not a vacuum, but it feels like I have to force every breath into my lungs. Is that something to do with the change in elevation? Or is it just the run itself? The sweat under my clothes has started to turn cold, and I catch myself shivering. This isn’t working.

  The whole time, I’ve been fighting against the lack of gravity, struggling to run in a way that I’m used to. Maybe there’s a way to work with the gravity.

  This time, instead of pushing each stride down, I concentrate all my energy on the upwards spring, trying to push myself higher. The first time I do it, I put so much effort into it that I nearly hurl myself over the outside railing. I grab it with both hands, steady myself and try again – and this time I control the spring, keeping my body steady in the air. The first stride takes me a good ten feet. The next, fifteen. Then, I’m leaping higher and higher, bounding forwards in huge, springy steps, covering twenty feet at a time, twenty-five. It still feels as if the wall is trying to pull me towards it, but I angle my jumps, giving myself some room to move.

  The sensation is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I close my eyes, and now I do laugh, because for the first time I feel what it’s like to fly. For the first time in my life, in the middle of the most impossible circumstances imaginable, I’m airborne.

  I’ve never felt a rush like it. And I know right then that if I survive this, I’m going to spend the rest of my life chasing it.

  The catwalk vanishes below me, leaving me hanging in mid-air. My heart jumps, and for a long second I think I’m about to plummet to the bottom. But then I realise that I’m still moving forwards, buoyed by the lack of gravity.

  It’s an amazing feeling – almost peaceful.

  Five seconds later, I collide painfully with the wall of the shaft.

  I bounce right off, flying across the gaping centre of the tube towards the opposite wall. I flip my body around in the air, so my legs are facing the wall.

  This time, instead of smashing into it, I let my legs take the impact, then push upwards, launching my body up the shaft. Not hard enough. I shoot out a few feet, and then the wall catches up with me. I bend my legs again, then push upwards even harder. This time, I propel myself into the middle of the shaft.

  Looking down, I spot the catwalk, which does indeed end abruptly just before one of the cables. Of course: techs wouldn’t need it any more. Not when they could just push upwards, and fly.

  It’s an odd sensation. The gravity is low enough that I can fly down the middle of the shaft for lengthy stretches, but every few hundred feet, I find the wall rushing up again as the spin catches up with me. Without the act of running, I start to get colder, and before long I’m shivering. I’m painfully aware that I need to get through the Core as quickly as possible. I don’t know how long my body can take this cold, and I’m already going to be dangerously weak by the time I get out the other side.

  An unsettling thought occurs to me. How do I actually get through the doors on the other side? Will there be a panel that controls the door? Or can it only be accessed from the outside? I didn’t even stop to check at the Apogee end of the shaft, which seems like a colossal oversight.

  The sound in the shaft changes, the rumbling getting deeper, more hollow. I crane my neck upwards, and there, silhouetted from behind by a dozen huge beams, like something coming out of the sun, is the Core Reactor.

  It’s enormous, far bigger than I’d ever expected. The shaft opens out into a massive spherical chamber; the reactor is in the centre, an angular block, running from one wall to the other, cocooned in cables and control panels. I almost expect to see jets of steam being vented into the room, but any real moisture in this cold would be lethal to the electronics. The hum coalesces, and it’s unlike any other sound I’ve ever heard. Like this thing has a stomach, and it’s rumbling.

  I’m flying out of the mouth of the shaft, heading straight towards it. I look back over my shoulder, and see that the shaft entrance is moving to the side. I’m at the centre of the ring now, and everything is rotating around me. The movement is slow, more than enough for me to deal with.

  I swing my body around – it’s harder with so little gravity, but I just manage it – and my legs make contact with the reactor, sending a dull clang echoing around the chamber. There’s a set of handgrips to my right, and I reach out for them, letting my body come to rest. I’m about to throw myself outwards again when I hear a cry of triumph from above me.

  Oren Darnell flies out of the darkness, clutching an enormous blade.

  67

  Riley

  A scream dies in my throat, choked off by the memory of those rough, damp hands. All that emerges is a terrified mewling.

  I’m frozen in place, watching Darnell bear down on me. His face is like something from the other end of the universe.

  At the very last moment, just before he reaches me, I finally find the strength. I piston my legs, hurling myself towards the wall of the chamber. But Darnell was ready for the move; he grabs the handgrip I was holding on to not two seconds before, then uses it to swing himself after me, his legs making contact with the reactor and pushing outwards. I’m moving away fast, but not fast enough – his push-off was more powerful, and as we race towards the wall, he starts to gain on me.

  How? How did he know I would be running the Core? How long has he been waiting for me?

  The part of the wall we’re heading towards is fitted with several screens, all trailing power cables. When I make contact a second later, it’s knees first, and I feel one of the screens crack and buckle under me, spitting glass and sparks.

  Darnell is right behind me. I throw myself off the wall, aiming over his head. But instead of trying to catch me, he swings around in mid-air, bracing his left shoulder for impact as he jabs the blade upwards, slicing through my jacket and tagging my side.

  It’s like a red-hot piece of metal being held to my skin. I jerk away, another scream tearing itself from my lips, as a tiny bubble of blood appears and starts to spread out, floating in mid-air between us. His strike has changed my direction, knocking me back towards the reactor.

  Darnell roars, and launches himself after me, but this time I have a head start, and his direction is slightly off. He’s moving underneath me. He turns his face upwards, and the sight of his smile almost causes me to lose control completely.

  “I saw you come in through the Apogee entrance,” he calls out. “You thought I’d just let you walk into Apex?”

  The cameras. That’s how. It doesn’t matter if not all of them work any more; the one outside the Core does. Maybe even one in the Air Lab control room. How else would he have known that Amira had failed?

  He spreads his arms wide. The movement sets him spinning slowly in the other direction, but his eyes never leave me. “Now it’s just you and me, Hale. And what better place for us to have a rematch than the centre of Outer Earth itself? It’s almost poetic.”

  The mewling is back, stuck in my throat. My side is on fire; I don’t think I’ve been cut deeply, but I leave a glistening trail of blood as I move through the air.

  I hit the reactor and scrabble at it, hunting for a hold. But this section of the surface is smooth, and with nothing to hold on to, all I do is put myself into a spin. A rolling wave of nausea spurts through me, and the tumble causes my arms and legs to flail. Darnell’s also trying to get a grip on the reactor. He’s taken his eyes off me, hunting for a hold.

  There are cables passing below me, a tangled mess of wires spewing out of their black insulation she
aths. I reach out and snag one of them, praying that I don’t rip it out of its socket; the last thing I need is to cause a reactor shutdown myself. Holding on to the cable swings my body around, until my head is pointing back towards Darnell.

  I can’t beat him. Not when he’s armed and I’m not. And in near-zero-G – no way. I barely survived in normal gravity. I’m breathing too hard, the cold beginning to lock down my body heat. There’s an odd tingling sensation in my hands.

  The cables. There’s a big tangle of them, positioned slightly away from the reactor, held apart at intervals by steel brackets. The gap behind the cables looks just wide enough for me to squeeze into.

  I pull myself towards the opening, trying to be as quiet as possible. I wedge myself into it, the cables pushing against my bulky jacket.

  If Darnell saw me enter, he’ll have me trapped, able to pick me off whenever he wants. I can see the blade shooting from between the cables, skewering me in the chest, but there’s nothing, just the hum of the reactor against my back. I can’t even hear Darnell any more, and when I peer through the mass of cables, he’s vanished. I slow my breathing, try to remain still.

  There he is, drifting slowly across my field of vision. His eyes scan the room, passing across my hiding place. I hold my breath and draw back against the wall, worried that a stray puff of breath from my mouth will give me away.

  He stares for what feels like an eternity.

  But then he turns his head, looks away. And I notice something. He’s breathing heavily: I can hear it, a tired, wet rumble. His blade hand is shaking slightly too, as if he’s gripping it too hard, and his enormous shoulders are also shaking, rising up and down with each breath. He’s not as fit as I am, and his body is burning too much energy too quickly. He’s injured too, with blood soaking his shoulder. His jacket doesn’t fit him, and the shirt underneath looks thin and insubstantial.