Landfall (The Reach, Book 2) (5 page)

He pushed himself off the floor, still panicked, and kept going until his back hit the wall.  He looked around.

Where was he?  He didn’t know this place.

Weak daylight was filtering in from a round window high up on one wall, like the porthole in the hull of a ship.  For a moment he wondered if these unfamiliar confines were the innards of the railcar itself.  Was he rocketing skyward along the Wire toward the sanctuary of Habitat One right now?

He pushed himself to his feet and his knees popped as he straightened.  He groaned.  Every muscle in his body felt like it had been tenderised with a crowbar.  Even his fingers felt stiff as he clenched them, as if he’d been struck down by some sudden and thoroughly debilitating case of arthritis.  He worked his neck back and forth as he tried to clear his addled senses.

The Atrium.  Ursie.  She left, and I came back down into the Reach.

Yes, he remembered now.  It was all coming back.

High above, Ursie had undoubtedly made it to Habitat One, having taken his place on the railcar that had lifted her upward into the night.  He’d been duped, that was for sure.  Thinking back to his journey up the Reach, he couldn’t be exactly sure of how many thoughts she’d planted in his head.  How many times had she deceived him with her illusions?  Her manipulation of him had been so subtle, so complete, that he had been left completely dumbfounded by the end of it.

You got me, kid.  I’ll give you that.

After he’d left the Atrium, he’d made his way back down into the Plant Rooms and found a compact, out-of-the-way office in which to hide while he caught up on some much-
needed rest.  He’d only meant to sleep for an hour or two before getting moving again, but if the klaxon had already gone off, it was clear that he’d overdone it by a good margin.  He must have been out for close to ten hours.

Is it any wonder, after the events of the past few days?

Knile scrubbed at his face as he tried to get some feeling back in his cheeks and his lips.  He’d been through some tough times in the past, but nothing quite like the last forty-eight hours.  The pace that he’d set had been relentless, the demands on his body and his mind unprecedented, and in many ways he was amazed that he was still breathing.  He’d narrowly escaped death more than once.  Things could have played out very differently had luck not been on his side.

There wasn’t much point berating himself for resting so long, he decided.  It was done, and in truth, he’d needed it.  He still had a lot of work to do, and he wanted to operate with a mind that was clear of fatigue if possible.

With the klaxon sounding, workers might be filtering through the offices and workshops around him any time soon.  Knile had to get out before he was discovered.

There was a small grey laminate desk jammed into one corner, and Knile eased himself gingerly into the tattered swivel chair that sat beside it.  He pulled his holophone from his backpack and tried to get his plan clear in his mind.

He had to find Roman.  He had to get the boy out of the Candidate program before it was too late.  Then he needed to go find Talia and work out how to move forward from there.  Beyond that, things were somewhat vague.  Knile wanted the three of them to leave Earth together.  He was adamant about that.  His revelation on the roof with Ursie had instilled in him a powerful desire to rekindle the relationship the three of them had once shared, and for them to find a future together.  He wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to orchestrate their departure together – organising passkeys for him
self and Mianda had been a near-impossible task, let alone gaining three passkeys simultaneously – but between them he was sure that they would find a way.

As he sat in the chair he thought back to the mad rush of the day before.  He had called Talia and told her of Roman’s predicament, asked her to help.  With any luck she would be on her way to see him right now.  Perhaps, if she was lucky, she might have even found the boy by now.  The first part of Knile’s plan might already be well in motion.

Knile selected Talia’s number on the holophone and waited patiently as it rang.  There was no answer.  He drummed his fingers on the desk, causing tiny dust motes to drift up into the shaft of light that speared in through the porthole.  He called the number again and waited.

Three rings.  Four.

“Come on.  Pick up, Talia.”

Two more rings.

Then there was a soft beep as the phone picked up.

“Hello?” Knile said.

There was no response, no image on the display, but Knile thought he could hear breathing on the other end.

“Talia, are you there?”  Still nothing.  “Talia, I’m sorry about yesterday, putting you on the spot like that.  I understand if you don’t want to talk to me, but–”

There was another beep and the connection went dead.

Knile put the phone in his pocket and sighed, rubbing his eyebrows in consternation.  He wasn’t quite sure what to make of that exchange.  His first thought was that Talia was angry with him for leaving her with the responsibility of rescuing Roman, and that was entirely fair.  Knile had been selfish, he’d admitted that.  It was only after his discussion with Ursie on the roof, his realisation about what he truly wanted, that he recognised the flaws in his thinking and in the way he had treated others.

If he’d alienated Talia, that would be just one more bridge he had to rebuild on this long journey that was ahead of him.

On the other hand, perhaps he was reading too much into it.  Talia might simply have been in an area with bad reception.  She might call back later once it improved to see what he wanted.  Or perhaps she had been busy and couldn’t talk right then.

There was no point getting wound up about it until he knew all the facts.

In either case, Knile was in the dark about both Talia and Roman for now.  That was not an ideal place to be, because he didn’t know if Talia had the situation in hand or not.

Roman might still be headed toward danger for all he knew.

So what can I do?

If Roman was headed in with the Grove convoy, he would be down at the entrance in the next hour or so.  There was no way that Knile was going to be able to reach him in time.  There were a couple
of hundred levels between them and, without access to the main elevators, descending that quickly was simply not possible.

Knile wasn’t even sure he could make it to the ground level in time for tomorrow’s convoy.  That would mean another forty-eight hours before he could meet the boy.

That might be too late.

Knile thumped his fist on the desk, cursing the cloying sense of drowsiness that clung to his thoughts and prevented him from thinking clearly.  There had to be a better way of doing this than to run from one end of the Reach to the other with nothing more than a mad sense of hope to guide him.

Stop Roman from joining the Candidate program.  That’s what you have to do.

Then the answer came to him.  He’d been looking at this thing from the wrong end.

All he had to do was stop the one who controlled the Candidate program.  Hoyer Honeybul was the key.  If the old man was removed from the equation, there was no way Roman could fall into the wrong hands.  The Candidate program would fall apart.

Knile pulled himself up to the little desk and activated the terminal in front of him.  Luckily the information he sought was public domain – there was no need for him to even hack any databases.

He scanned through the directory listing until he found the entry pertaining to Honeybul, then took note of the address.

He smiled wryly.

He was heading back to Lux.

6

Duran awoke to an incessant buzzing sound.  It came at him in waves, staccato bursts that needled him like a jagged finger poking him incessantly in the ribs.  He grimaced and wriggled as he tried to escape it, but it was everywhere.  It was unrelenting.  It grated on him so much that it forced him upward through the monstrously heavy stupor that enveloped him, a cocoon that felt like a lead blanket, and as he pried his eyes open
, a low moan escaped his lips.

There was a hand on his chest pushing him back down, and he found that he was too weak to fight against it.  He tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt as though they had been stuck together by a thick, viscous glue.  He rubbed at his eyes with his fists, scouring away sleep and grit and god knew what else, and finally he was able to see.

He was lying on a narrow bed.  Above him, a bright white stripe flickered on and off in time with the buzzing sound – a fluorescent light.  Duran reeled back against the brightness of it, dropping a forearm across his eyes and turning his head to the side.

“Sorry,” a voice said nearby.  “I’ll turn it off.”

Duran turned toward the voice, but the sharp movement caused his shoulder to flare painfully.  He moaned and clutched at it with his hand.

“Easy,” the voice said, taking his hand and easing it back to the side.  “No sudden movements, please.”

There was a click and the buzzing stopped.  Duran opened his eyes and saw the outline of a woman sitting beside him in the gloom.

“I just wanted to get a better look at that shoulder,” she said.  “Damn light is on the fritz.  Sorry if I woke you up.”

Duran recognised her voice.  It was the woman who had grabbed him up at the Atrium.

He suddenly remembered what had happened.  Knile escaping up the elevator, his own flight down the wall, the Redmen giving chase.  The woman.  Then what?

“Where am I?” he said, trying to get up again, but the woman placed a hand on his chest and guided him back down again.

“You’re in a little corner of Juncture Nine.  You’re safe here,” she added.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Zoe.  Do you remember what happened, Alec?”

She edged closer and now he could see her features again.  Those amber-brown eyes looked him up and down, full of concern.

“Unfortunately, yes.”

“Up to what point?”

Duran thought back to what had happened, scrubbing at his face as he tried to shrug off the drowsiness that still clung to him.  He stopped, sensing something was different, and saw a drip attached to the back of his hand.  He reached up but Zoe stopped him before he could touch it.

“Leave it,” she said.  “You’ve lost a lot of blood.  You need to keep that in for a while longer.”  Duran acquiesced, too weak to resist her even if he wanted to.  “Tell me what you remember.”

“We were running from the Redmen.  You got the outer door open and dragged me inside.  You were calling someone, but I don’t remember what you said.”

“Yeah, that’s about when your lights went out.”

“How did you get me all the way down to Gaslight?”

“It wasn’t easy.  Luckily I have a friend who can open doors around here.”

Duran looked about at his surroundings.  They were in a small room with a dome-shaped roof, set into which were a network of copper pipes and cables of varying colours and lengths.  The fluoro, now dark and silent, hung from the roof suspended by chain mounts on either end, and over by the corner a naked bulb splashed faint light across the room.

“What’s happening?  Why have you brought me here?”

Zoe leaned back and crossed her legs, linking her fingers together across her waist as she regarded him.

“I’ve been watching you, Alec.  I’ve been watching you with a great deal of interest.”

“Why?  And for who?”

She shrugged.  “For myself.  Because you interest me.”

Duran pushed himself up onto his elbow, and this time she made no attempt to stop him.

“Are you going to keep talking in circles, or are you actually going to tell me something here?”

Zoe smiled.  “Are you sure you don’t want to rest first, before we get down to business?  You took a nice shot there.”

Duran glanced down at his shoulder.  “How bad?”

“You’ll live.  Our patch-
up was a bit of a mess
, since we only have a rudimentary setup here.  The sutures are pretty rough.  You probably won’t want to wear a bikini again any time soon.”

“Uh… I’ll keep that in mind.”  He drew himself up further and swung his legs over the side of the bed, wincing at the pain.  Zoe watched him carefully, evaluating him as a doctor would evaluate her patient.

“You up to that?” she said doubtfully.

“Yeah,” Duran said, his features bunched up as he fought to control the pain.  “Let’s talk.  Tell me what’s going on.  Why have you been watching me?”

“Okay.”  Zoe got up and checked the IV bag that was attached to a rusted metal pole by the bed.  “I hope that didn’t sound creepy, by the way.  When I said I’d been watching you.”

“It was a little creepy, yeah.”

“It’s how we do our recruitment around here.”  She turned back to him.  “I’m part of a small team who operates outside the law here in the Reach.  You could say that we’re trying to bring justice to the place.  Trying to make up for the shortcomings of the Enforcers.  Doing the jobs that they can’t or won’t do.”