Mark R. Healy
Copyright © Mark R. Healy 2015
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Cover Art Copyright © Mark R. Healy 2015
Editing by Clio Editing Services
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Terms and Conditions:
The purchaser of this book is subject to the condition that he/she shall in no way resell it, nor any part of it, nor make copies of it to distribute freely.
This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
EPILOGUE
Join My Mailing List
Author’s Note
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Also by Mark R. Healy
1
Knile was sweating, and it wasn’t just from the warmth inside the elevator car.
He was afraid that in a matter of seconds he might be dead.
He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. Every ragged breath that passed his lips seemed hotter than the last, and as he listened to the air wheezing in and out of his throat, he imagined the oxygen supply in the compartment slowly ebbing away.
He wondered if perhaps asphyxiation would claim him before the elevator hit home and the doors opened – before those waiting to kill him could have their way with him.
The thought was so ironic that he almost laughed.
Get a grip. You’re losing it.
There was an acrid taste in his mouth, and now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure if the toxins from the outside air had been expunged from the compartment when the doors had closed. He decided there was no point taking the chance. He took the respirator from his pocket and fitted it to his nostrils. Breathing deeply, he filled his lungs until they could take no more, then slowly exhaled. It was a technique that had always calmed his jangled nerves in the past.
Right now it wasn’t helping.
He adjusted the collar of his shirt and tried to wipe away some of the sweat. The glistening sheen that coated his skin seemed to have a mind of its own, returning mere seconds after he removed it, so he gave up and tried to think of something else.
He wasn’t used to this. He wasn’t used to being scared.
This wasn’t like him. He’d always prided himself on keeping his cool, staying in control. Calling the shots and manipulating the other players in the game so that he could best take advantage of the situation.
But this was different. This was reckless.
The elevator continued its slow descent from the roof, edging inexorably toward its destination – the Atrium. When it finally got there and the doors opened, he had no idea what was going to greet him.
Although it seemed a lifetime ago, it had in fact been only a few minutes since he’d escaped the Atrium by stepping into this very elevator. Alec Duran, his old adversary, had been out there screaming at him and trying to kill him, popping off shots like he had just stepped into a shooting gallery.
Then, minutes before that, Alton Wilt and his army of madmen had been trying to chase Knile down and capture him – or kill him – and Knile had barely escaped their grasp. Wilt would be dead by now, nothing more than a pool of brains and bone and skin lying in the streets of Link far below. His cronies, however, could still be out there. They could be waiting just beyond the Stormgates, unaware that their boss was dead, still trying to carry out his final orders even though now there was no point.
And what if Duran had called for backup? There might be Enforcers all over the place.
Maybe the whole damn menagerie would be out there – Enforcers and Wilt’s men, the Crimson Shield, and who knew what else. Knile might be about to walk into a war zone, a battlefield on which he had no allies.
He sucked in another nervous breath, knowing that he had every right to be anxious about what might be waiting at the end of this ride.
“When all of this is over,” he said to himself, “I’m going to take a very long vacation.”
The elevator was slowing now. He was only seconds away from reaching his destination.
His fingers snuck along the folds of the secret pocket in his trousers, a subconscious habit he’d developed in the last twenty-four hours. The familiar lump of the passkey was gone, and strangely, that did not upset him. The only thing that mattered to him now was finding Roman and Talia, the only two friends he had left on Earth, and helping them find safety.
His fingers followed his belt around to his back where he’d hidden the shiv. That piece of finely honed bone was still wet with Alton Wilt’s blood. As useful as it was, it would do him no good against guns and pulse rifles. His hand dropped away again and clenched into a fist.
The elevator’s momentum slowed and then the carriage came to a stop. It clicked softly as it reached home, then paused as if drawing out the moment.
Knile spread his feet, clenching his other hand into a fist as well. He was ready.
The doors opened on the Atrium, and Knile stood deathly still, waiting. The daylight had faded, and now the place was lit not by the red twilight sky, but by circular lamps set into the arches around the perimeter. The citizens who had been wandering around before he and Duran had shown up were now gone, scared off by the yelling and the threats, the gunfire. They’d retreated back down to their homes in Lux like mice disappearing into their burrows at the sight of a pair of hungry foxes.
Now the place was quiet, still. The breeze continued to blow through the arches, stirring fine wisps of dust that spun into the air like ephemeral ballerinas, turning gracefully once or twice before dying back down into nothingness again.
Cautiously he began to move forward, stepping across the threshold and out into the wide-open spaces of the Atrium.
The two members of Crimson Shield were back at their stations, just outside the elevator doors on either side. They were not wearing the same kind of armour as those above had been. There was no metal plating or full-face masks to be seen. Instead, these Redmen wore a supple-looking fabric that was a deep red like the twilight of a few minutes before, and which had the appearance of rugged leather. Knile suspected that it was some sort of synthetic armour that was in fact much stronger than it looked. From the bulges in their chests and arms, he also ascertained that they were wearing further protection underneath, possibly Kevlar plating.
On their faces they wore sleek respirators that fit snugly against their skin and which had a finish not unlike burnished copper.
The man on Knile’s right, a dark-skinned Redman who wore a beard and a discontented scowl, looked Knile up and down and then shook his head.
“You again,” he said.
Knile shrugged and gave him an impish grin. “Uh-huh.”
The Redman’s scowl de
epened and he glanced briefly across at his partner and then back to Knile.
“I don’t like you,” he said flatly. “You look like trouble to me. However, if you’re travelling on the Wire, you’re a customer of the Consortium, and that means people like me are here to protect you. And respect your right to be here.” He turned his body to face Knile front on, his pulse rifle clasped in his hands. “But you’re not travelling on the Wire, are you?”
Knile scratched his chin, doing his best to play the innocent.
“Seems not. Things didn’t work out.”
“Look, pal. I don’t know what was going on between you and that Enforcer, or why you came back down that elevator. I don’t even want to know, because the odds are that I’m not going to like what I hear. My only interest is seeing that the right people get past here, and the wrong people disappear and don’t ever come back.”
“About that,” Knile said. “That Enforcer who was chasing me, what–?”
“In case you’re not reading between the lines, I’m telling you that you’re one of the wrong people to be standing around in my Atrium.” The Redman’s eyes narrowed. “You have exactly five seconds to get out of my face before I adopt measures that are less prone to misinterpretation.”
Knile got the message. If there was one group of people in the Reach he knew not to mess with, it was the Redmen.
“I see. Thanks for your time,” he said, and then he got moving toward the Stormgates.
As he moved away from the central column, the rest of the Atrium began to peel back and reveal itself to him. It seemed that the place was indeed deserted, apart from the two Redmen at his back. No Enforcers, no Duran, no thugs in suits.
He’d caught a break, it seemed. A big one.
He no longer had the passkey in his possession, but that would not stop him leaving the Atrium. The passkey was only required for those moving inward toward the elevator. Knile stepped through the hazy blue energy field, feeling the hairs on his arms and neck stand to attention, and then there was a pushing sensation at his back as if a strong breeze had suddenly sprung up behind him. As he came out the other side of the Stormgate, he couldn’t suppress the notion of the glowing blue portal giving him a gentle shove in the back to help him on his way.
Good riddance, Knile.
In the outer portion of the Atrium there were scorch marks on the floor, elliptical spots of blackened concrete where, Knile assumed, the Redmen’s pulse weapons had torn shallow divots. He wondered if this was the direction in which Duran had fled. There was a trail of the marks leading right up to the edge of the Atrium, and Knile half expected to see a charred human body tangled in the steel wires of the balustrade, but there was nothing. Either the Redmen had completely vaporised Duran or he’d leapt over the edge in order to escape.
Either way, he wasn’t coming back.
Knile stepped to the balustrade and looked out across the evening sky. Outside the Atrium’s arches, the world seemed black, the landscape of Earth far below featureless and indistinct. In the distance he could see dim yellow lights, the last outposts of civilisation in the remote lowlands, clusters of desperate humanity suffocating under the pall of toxins and murk from which there was no escape.
The view was beautiful and tragic and mesmerising, but Knile did not stand around to savour it.
He had work to do.
2
Alec Duran was running, but he wasn’t sure why.
Some remote part of his brain was telling him that it was instinct, a deep-seated, animal urge to stay alive, a frenetic thing beyond his control that forced his arms and legs to pump as they carried him away from danger.
Around him, the pulse rounds from the Redmen’s weapons were exploding and kicking up dust and plumes of pulverised concrete. He knew all too well what a pulse round would do to his skin, to his flesh and bones, should it hit him flush in the back. There wouldn’t be much left of him, that was for sure.
So he kept running, finding himself moving toward the wire balustrade that marked the edge of the Atrium. It was getting closer with every stride.
But why was he running? Why was he bothering to go on? He should have just stood there at the Stormgates and let the Redmen take him, shouldn’t he? It would have been the most appropriate fate for one who had failed as thoroughly and completely as he had.
Knile had escaped him. Again. He had slipped through Duran’s grasp at the last minute, even though Duran had been looking at him down the sights of his .40-cal. Duran could have blown the guy’s head off. The opportunity had been there. The little kid, the blonde girl, had been behind Knile. She wouldn’t have been hit.
You had the shot and you didn’t take it. You let the scumbag go free.
By the time Duran had decided to pull the trigger, it had been too late. Knile had already slipped into the Stormgate and the rounds from the .40 had been harmlessly absorbed into the energy field. The opportunity to take him down had been lost.
I didn’t kill all those people, Duran, Knile had said.
Sure, Knile, Duran thought caustically. You’re innocent, just like every other person in this place. No one’s accountable anymore.
And then Duran had run, turned and fled like a frightened child.
What else would he expect from himself after the cowardice he had shown in that moment with Knile?
All of these thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant, in a single stride. Then the survival instinct took over again and his mind returned to the present.
The Redmen should have hit him by now, he thought as he ran wildly forward. They were better shots than this. Maybe they were trying to shepherd him back to one of the elevators like a couple of lumbering red sheepdogs trying to steer the last wayward lamb into the pen. The problem was, Duran wasn’t heading that way. In his mad flight he was moving without thought or direction, careening toward the perimeter with reckless abandon.
He took three more steps, and now he’d run out of rope. He was at the edge, the sheer drop into nothingness below him, the Redmen still advancing at his back.
He turned to face them, suddenly calm. There were no options left, he realised. He’d reached the end of the road. Now there was nothing left for him but to await the inevitable. The choices had all been taken away from him, and now he was a mere spectator in the last few seconds of his own existence.
The two Redmen were slowing, steadying themselves as they realised the quarry had been cornered. They were lining him up in their sights.
Replacing the .40 in its holster, Duran straightened his suit jacket and readied himself for the end.
He thought of his father and how he’d let him down, and that was the worst moment of all. Forget Knile escaping, forget the cowardice of fleeing these demons in crimson. Failing his father was the greatest defeat he could experience, and it filled him with despair.
Something dark flashed in his periphery and there was the sound of movement all around him. Suddenly there were hands on his chest, his back, and a powerful grip was lifting him off his feet.
Duran cried out in terror. Something was pulling him over the railing and out into the nothingness.
Then he was falling, the wall of the Reach rushing past him in a whir. For an instant he saw the lights of Link far, far below, nestled in the deepening twilight at the base of the structure three kilometres below. He tried to loose another scream but his voice caught in his throat, and the only sound that escaped his lips was a hoarse croak that was little more than a rasp.
Then an instant later his momentum came to an abrupt halt and he was shunted sideways. He flailed and kicked, disorientated and terrified. As he twisted and scraped along the wall, he caught sight of a taut rope secured to the wall above, and then a hand clamped over his mouth.
“Stop squeaking, you idiot,” a muffled voice hissed in his ear, “unless you want those Redmen to come down here after you and finish the job.”
Duran had no idea who had grabbed him, but he saw the sense in their w
ords and did as instructed. The two of them reached equilibrium and he felt something solid under his feet. Looking down he saw that they had landed on a strip of narrow steel mesh that served as a walkway. His captor slid a hand up to his chest and pushed him flat against the wall, and Duran almost cried out again as the gunshot wound in his shoulder flared painfully.
“Stay still and shut up.”
Duran looked across at his captor, and through the pain he registered a moment of surprise – the one who had grabbed him was a woman. She was dressed in black and her dark hair was tied in a ponytail. A pair of amber-brown eyes regarded Duran coolly over a respirator before flicking upward again.
“Wait,” she said simply, staring up the wall, unblinking and still.
Duran reached up and grasped her wrist, easing it away in an attempt to reduce the pain in his shoulder. It was no easy task. Her slender limbs belied the strength and surety with which she’d handled him, and even now he wasn’t sure he could push her away. The pressure on Duran’s chest eased somewhat, but the woman did not release him entirely.
“Stop wriggling,” she said, never lowering her eyes at him.
“My shoulder–”
“Shut up,” she said again.
Duran could hear voices above them, and with an effort he bit back on another moan of pain. He followed the woman’s gaze up toward the Atrium, and he thought he could see at least one figure up there looking down.
The Redmen. What are they doing?
Duran wondered whether they might pursue the woman and himself down the wall. Surely their interest would not extend below the Atrium, even if they believed Duran had somehow survived going over the top of the balustrade. Their job was to defend the Stormgates, not to chase stragglers half way down the Reach. If he and the woman remained still, surely the Redmen would return to their posts.
As if to contradict him, a thick grey rope suddenly came arcing out from above and slapped against the wall not five metres away from them.
“Wow,” the woman said casually. “You really pissed these guys off, huh?”
Landfall (The Reach, Book 2) Page 1
