Tracer [Riley Hale 01]

by Boffard, Rob

  “I’ll go,” I say. Maybe it’s something in my voice, because she stops yelling and stares at me. Seizing the advantage, I tell her to give me her lab coat. She hesitates for a moment, her pleading eyes now gushing large tears, and then rips her coat off and hands it to me. It’s heavy, the rough fabric damp and slimy with soot. But by now there are more techs falling out the doors, and one more white coat won’t be noticed.

  “They’re going to seal it off,” says Suki, the manic edge returning to her voice. “It’s the only way to fight the fire.”

  “What about the foam?”

  There are no sprinklers or fire hoses on the station – nobody would waste water like that – but there are systems that spray chemical foam if a fire breaks out. They should be suppressing the fire, but Suki shakes her head, flicking it from side to side for a lot longer than normal. “It didn’t work. The fire just burned right through it, like it wasn’t even there. You have to be quick, or they’ll trap you inside.”

  I’m already running. Leaving behind a babbling Suki, I head towards the doors, hoping that nobody picks out my face. Not one tech or stomper looks in my direction.

  I can feel the darting tongues of heat from the fire. They lick at my skin, and I have to force my eyes shut as one sickeningly hot blast washes over me. Beyond me, the Food Lab is a mess of smoke and flame, lit with showers of sparks and the red glow of emergency lights. I can see a few greenhouses still standing, glowing from within like lanterns.

  I should be scared. I should be running, away, far away. But I feel none of that. Instead, I’m gripped by a deathly calm, and there’s only a single thought in my mind.

  Prakesh. I’m coming.

  There’s an angry shout from behind me. Someone grabs at my arm, yelling for me to stop. In one movement, I shrug off Suki’s lab coat, and start running. Straight into hell.

  The heat envelops me, so intense that nausea begins to boil in my stomach. The smoke is thick, and I blink rapidly as I run down the rows of greenhouses. Ahead of me, two of them pop, exploding outwards with a bang, showering the ground with flecks of molten plastic. There’s too much fire. It’s everywhere, blanketing the floor, the walls.

  I don’t know how long I’ve got. I scream Prakesh’s name, and get a mouthful of hot, stinging smoke. A series of coughs explode out of me, hard enough to bring me crashing to my knees, each one like something ripping its way out of my throat with ragged nails. I haul myself up, and keep running, pushing towards the Air Lab. The white smoke and dull red fire turns the gardens into a swirling wilderness, and I’m not even sure I’m heading in the right direction.

  I turn a corner, and reach out a hand to steady myself, then pull it back with a yelp. A thin line of shiny molten plastic has splattered across the back of my hand, and I frantically wipe it on my sleeve. The plastic peels off my hand, taking a thin layer of skin with it. The pain is so sharp and bright that I actually gasp. By now, my eyes are streaming, stinging from the smoke and the heat.

  I stagger on, forcing myself forwards, trying to dodge the pools of fire even as my legs threaten to give way. I have to find him. I have to.

  But even as the thought forms, I know it’s hopeless. The entire hangar is a burning coffin, and I’m trapped inside. I haven’t come across a single person since I dived in, but with the smoke they could have passed within feet of me and I wouldn’t have known. Even if I somehow find Prakesh, there’s no way we’ll get to the main doors before they seal us in. And they will seal us in: the need to starve the fire of oxygen is going to outweigh the lives of a tracer and a lab tech.

  I sink to the ground, collapsing onto my side. The air is clearer down here, and I suck in great lungfuls of it, bringing on another bout of coughing. My chest is a taut drum. There’s a hum in the air, rumbling under the crackling of the fire, and it takes me a moment to realise that it’s coming from the buzz box. The insects. Millions of them must be dying, their enclosure turned into a furnace.

  The smoke is heavy now, starting to rest on the floor, and the searing heat scorches my back through my jacket. I should be scared, but the calm has returned, washing over me. I picture Prakesh’s face, holding it in the front of my mind, trying to recall every detail. I see him smiling, laughing at a stupid joke, the concern on his face when he saw I’d been ambushed, the relief when he hugged me in Gray’s chamber. The look in his eyes when we were alone.

  And then, unbidden, the others come to mind: Carver, Amira, the Twins. My mother and father.

  Survived an ambush, caught a killer, went through a bombing, then died in a fire trying to save your best friend, I think, closing my eyes. At least they’ll be able to tell one hell of a story.

  This last thought is like something glimpsed only in passing before it vanishes into the distance.

  And then strong hands grab me and haul me bodily off the floor. Prakesh’s face is streaked with dirt and soot, ringed with the white smoke. For a moment, I’m paralysed, not sure if he’s real or the first thing I see in the next world, but then he wraps an arm around me and starts pulling me with him. I force myself to walk, matching his pace.

  My voice takes a moment to kick in. “They’re sealing it off. All of it!” I shout.

  “I know!” he yells back.

  Ahead of us, I can see the doors to the labs: the panes of glass in each glow red with the reflected fire, like malevolent eyes. For a second, I’m seized with the idea that we need to get inside there, that they will provide shelter. But Prakesh seems to sense what I’m thinking and shakes his head, pulling us to the right along the wall. We’re both coughing again, trying to find tiny pockets of air in the smoke.

  A tongue of fire explodes across the passage. The heat jabs out at us, and we both collapse backwards, turning away from it as we crash to the ground. I feel as if I’m being baked alive, but Prakesh hauls me up again. “Don’t you dare die on me,” he says.

  And suddenly, ahead of us, the entrance looms. A figure, silhouetted in the spotlights, is running towards us. More hands pulling us out into the dazzling light. And there is no smoke, only clean air, and Prakesh and I collapse onto each other, crashing to the floor. I never knew how delicious air could be, how cool and sweet. I want to bathe in it, roll around in it, stuff great handfuls of it into my mouth.

  Behind us, the doors shut with a boom, and the rumble and crackle of the fire vanishes, replaced by the noise of the crowd.

  Prakesh rolls away from me. His face is covered in soot. I turn my head to the side to look at him. He sees me, and half smiles. “Don’t worry. Your face is as dirty as mine, I promise,” he says, his voice edged with smoke, and despite myself, I laugh. It hurts my chest, and soon turns into another coughing fit. Prakesh reaches out his arm across the floor, and grips my hand. I squeeze back.

  There’s a shadow over Prakesh, and then the worried face of Dumar comes into view. He glances angrily at me, and grabs Prakesh by the shoulder.

  “Please tell me you two were the last ones out?” he asks. “Tell me there’s no one in there.”

  Prakesh shakes his head. “No. Just us. We managed to get everyone else out, I think.” Anxiety flits across his face. “Did someone get the gene banks out?”

  “We did,” says a voice behind Dumar. It’s Suki, who looks as if she wants to hug Prakesh, or punch him, or faint, all at once.

  Prakesh sits up, holds his head. I suck in more crisp, clean air – and suddenly, worry surges through me.

  “Prakesh,” I say. “Please tell me the fire didn’t reach the Air Lab. Tell me the trees didn’t catch.”

  He’s silent, and for a moment I’m almost certain that our air is about to be snatched away, but then he turns to me and I can see relief in his eyes. “They’re OK. I sealed the Air Lab off.” His expression turns grave. “But the Food Lab. The insects …” We all turn to stare at the huge doors that now seal the lab away.

  We now have no food.

  I hear Darnell’s words again. There is going to be so much fun, you believ
e that.

  34

  Riley

  The crowd around is still cut through with panic. Several people have begun to bang on the doors to the Food Lab, demanding that they be opened. Dumar hauls Prakesh to his feet, and then reaches out a hand to me. He seems about to hug me, like he did back in Gray’s room, but he stops halfway through the motion, looking me up and down instead.

  “You all right?” he says. I can’t read his eyes.

  “I’m fine,” I say. I mean it, too: the tightness in my chest is fading, and every breath still tastes as sweet as ice-cold water. I glance at my hand. The red strip across the back where the molten plastic kissed it is painful, but looks superficial. I won’t have to get another blast of that white foam from the medics.

  Prakesh chances a smile. “Maybe we shouldn’t fight any more,” he says.

  “You think?”

  “I’m just saying. Fires, kidnapping, bombs … maybe the universe is trying to tell us something.” He gives a nervous laugh.

  “What now?” says Suki. She and Dumar look lost.

  Prakesh thinks for a moment. “Suki, we should still have some soil in the upper labs,” he says. “We need to get an emergency food op going, and we need to do it now. Tell the guys to start bringing it over, along with the spare UVs – do it right in the Air Lab. The GM plants aren’t even close to ready, but we can use those new carbide seeds the lab rats were working on. And while you’re at it, we’re going to need some sort of hydroponic system. Tell Yoshiro to use whatever he needs, and tell him he’ll have to do it double-time.”

  Suki stares at him, taken aback for a moment, but then nods and runs off, shouting for the techs to follow her.

  Prakesh turns to me. “The others? Amira?”

  “Safe. Carver hurt his shoulder, but they’re OK. The Twins were in the Nest the last I heard.”

  “The message over the comms said there was a fire in your sector. Was there another bomb?”

  I quickly fill him in on what happened back at Darnell’s trial in Apogee.

  “How many were hurt?”

  I avoid his eyes, and his shoulders sag. He wraps an arm around me; his grip is strong, comforting. “Let’s get you back,” he says.

  “I can walk myself,” I reply, irritated.

  “Walk? Ry, you can barely stand. Come on. Suki has things under control here.”

  I look at the growing crowd hammering on the doors, calling out in terror to the others. “I doubt that.”

  “They aren’t getting in. Not through those doors, anyway. Let’s go.”

  We move towards the stairwell at the far end of the gallery. The lights far above us have dimmed, as if in sympathy with the chaos below.

  The world might not have ended, but it can’t be far off. The chaos gets worse as we cross the border into Chengshi. Several times, we pass people fighting over food: men hurling insults at each other over caches of vegetables, held back by their friends. Someone being robbed on the ground as we cross the catwalk above, a knife waved in his face for a box of protein bars. I want to help, but Prakesh pulls me onward. We enter the maze of corridors again, and pass the mess. The door is shut, and two stompers in full armour guard the entrance. I swear I see them tighten their grip on their stingers as we walk past. Prakesh nods to them, but they just stare back.

  We’re nearing the Apogee border when there’s a crackle from a nearby comms screen, set into the corridor wall. The station logo flashes briefly, and then Janice Okwembu is standing there. She’s back in the board room, standing alone behind a lectern. We stop to watch; even on the crackly monitor, I can see her lips set tight, the steel in her eyes.

  She doesn’t bother with a greeting. “Today, we suffered two coordinated attacks,” she begins. I hear her words echoing down the corridor, repeating themselves through a dozen different speakers. “The first bomb was set off at a criminal trial in Apogee, and a remote device was triggered in our Food Lab. The first explosion claimed the lives of nearly fifty people, and the second, while less deadly, contained an incendiary chemical agent.

  “We don’t know how they were set, or what their composition was. The damage was great, both human and otherwise. Fortunately, the structural integrity of the station has not been compromised, and the engineers have told me that our orbit has not been disrupted. I would urge everybody to remain calm, to share what food you have, to help each other through this crisis.”

  “Like that’s going to happen,” Prakesh says.

  Okwembu continues, leaning forward on the lectern, staring straight into the camera. “There is much to be done before …” The picture crackles, then vanishes entirely. Okwembu’s voice cuts off abruptly, replaced by a loud burst of static.

  And then Darnell is on the screen and my heart freezes solid in my chest.

  It’s impossible to tell where he is. Whatever is behind him is cloaked in shadow. Prakesh is squeezing my hand tight, and around me I hear people gasp.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” Darnell says. “I wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone for coming to my trial. And if you missed it, don’t worry – there’s plenty more still to come.”

  The feed glitches, the static ripping Darnell’s face in two. The audio cuts out, and when he comes back a moment later, it’s horribly distorted, as if he’s put the microphone right up to his face.

  “… forty-eight hours. That’s the time you have left to live. That’s all the time we’re giving you.”

  The last word is caught somewhere in the feed and stretches out, mutating into a metallic buzz that seems to take an age to fade.

  I’ve stopped breathing. I have to force myself to suck air into my lungs, and every word of our conversation in the brig is surfacing in my mind.

  “Humans don’t deserve Outer Earth,” Darnell says, his grin glitching in and out as the feed struggles to keep up. “Not after what we did to our planet. We bombed and killed and—”

  This time, the screen goes completely black, the audio vanishing. When it comes back, Darnell is walking with the camera. The lights on the ceiling turn his face into a dark silhouette. He laughs, that childish voice becoming a shrieking cackle, which in turn morphs into a horrendous coughing fit.

  “We need to go. Now,” I say to Prakesh.

  But even as we move down the corridor, Darnell’s words follow us, turning into a monstrous echo. Wherever he is, he’s hacked the entire system.

  “And there are more than enough of us,” he’s saying. “We’re living among you, right now. Your best friend. The person across from you in the mess. Your sister. And all of us together? We’re the Sons of Earth.”

  We’re at the sector border. Around us, people are staring at the screens in disbelief. Darnell’s words are everywhere.

  “And when we’re gone? Our planet will restore itself. It’ll take millennia. But after a while, it’ll be as clean and fresh as it was when we first crawled out of the muck. And do you know why? Because we won’t be there.”

  He stops. For a second, I think the audio has cut out again, hope it has, but he’s just pausing. He leans close to the microphone – close enough for us to hear his breathing.

  “The next two days are going to be so much fun. We—”

  Another burst of static rattles through “… cut the signal! Cut it!”

  Janice Okwembu’s voice is urgent. I catch a glimpse of a screen as we cut through one of the lower corridors. She looks flustered, her veneer of control cracked. But she nods to someone off camera, and stares at the screen. Her eyes are made of steel.

  “I heard what you all just heard,” she says, and her voice is strong. “Let me make this clear. We will find Oren Darnell. We will bring him down. You have my word on that. For now, please try to stay calm. We will all get through this.” She pauses, and the screen reverts to the station logo.

  As the broadcast ends, I can hear shouts from behind us. Fear becomes panic in seconds, washing across the crowd. Prakesh and I keep moving. What else is there to do?


  Suddenly, I remember the woman on the catwalk. Grace Garner. Whatever she had to tell me looks more important by the second – a possible piece in the puzzle of Gray, Darnell and the Sons of Earth. I should have listened to her then. I should have made her tell me.

  I turn to Prakesh, quickly explaining what happened and what Garner looks like, but his expression is puzzled. “A woman? No, sorry, Ry, she didn’t show up. Just as well, right?” He barks a laugh and looks away, and it suddenly occurs to me just how much the loss of the Food Lab must hurt him. There are dark circles under his eyes, and it’s not just the smoke and the exertion that’s made him look so drawn, so tired.

  He shakes his head, as if trying to bring himself back. “If she had something to tell you about Darnell, then we need to find her,” he says.

  I nod. “We should get cleaned up first. Get some water. And we’ve got some food back at the Nest.”

  I start down the corridor, but Prakesh shakes his head. “You go. I need to check on my parents.”

  “Are you—”

  “I’ll be fine. Go link up with the rest of the Dancers. When you’re together, come and find me.”

  I give his hand a squeeze, and he turns, jogging off down the corridor.

  Without his support, my legs feel numb, soft as a wedge of tofu, and I nearly collapse to the ground. My mouth is coated with thick saliva. I realise I’m still wearing my pack, and I reach back for the water tube, but it’s dry, without even a single drop left. I shoulder the pack into a more comfortable position, and head down the corridor, distant shouts from the galleries chasing me.

  The Dancers are there when I reach the Nest, and as I haul myself up through the trapdoor, Kev sticks his head out the door. There’s uncharacteristic anger on his face. “Where you been?”

  I cut him off. “I’m OK. The others?”

  “Here.” He throws open the door, revealing the rest of the crew. Carver is leaning against the wall, flexing his arm, his hand clasped on his shoulder. Yao is at the workbench, rummaging through the drawers. And in the centre of the room stands Amira, hands on hips, anger on her face.