Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1) (2 page)

“Not well liked?  Doubt it.  That’s ancient history, buddy,” Fallon said with a toothy smile.  “I’m sure it’s all been forgotten.”

“Yeah, right.”

Fallon finished unwrapping his prize, a glistening mound of greasy, pale meat, and he began to rip at it with his bare fingers, shredding it into smaller morsels that he could stuff inside his mouth.  An unappealing scent assaulted Knile, something akin to offal that had been left out in the sun for too long, and he screwed up his nose.

“Where did you get the, uh… chicken?” Knile said.

Fallon paused to lick some grease off his fingers, casting an uncertain look in Knile’s direction.

“Uh, this isn’t chicken,” he said.

Knile waved dismissively.  “Okay, forget I asked.”  He moved forward and leaned on the table.  “What do you want, Fallon?  You’ve heard from Mianda, right?
”

Fallon continued to stuff his face, squeezing words out the side of his mouth as he did so.

“I’ve got some good news for you, Knile.  Great news.  Someone out there is looking out for you.”

“Huh?” Knile said irritably.  “You better start making sense.  I came a long way for this
.”

“That can’t have been much fun, trekking across this poisoned ball of dirt–”

Knile reached forward and grabbed Fallon’s shirt and wrenched him forward.  Bits of meat splattered across the table as he choked in surprise.

“Quit it with the damn
games, man,” Knile growled.  “Tell me why I’m here.”

“Okay, buddy.  Okay,” Fallon said, shrinking away from the other man’s wilting gaze.  He eased Knile’s wrist away with slimy fingers.  “Just trying to lighten the mood.  No problem, I’ll tell you everything.”

“Get on with it.”

Fallon pointed a stubby finger at him.  “They sent word to me a couple of days back.  There’s a passkey waiting for you.  Right now.”

Knile glared at him.  “What?”

“There’s a passkey for you,” Fallon repeated.  “It’s your lucky day.  You’re getting a ticket out of here.”

Knile suppressed the urge to reach out and slap the other man’s face.

“I told you when I left,” he grated, “that the only reason for you to contact me was if you had information about Mianda.
  If you got word that she was alive.  Didn’t I?”

Fallon blinked uneasily.  “Yeah, but–”

“And now you’re telling me that there’s no news about her?”

“This is a passkey we’re talking about, buddy!  A ticket out of this hellhole–”

Knile abruptly turned on his heel.

“I’m leaving,” he
said.  “I knew it was bad news when you saw me escaping the city a few years back.  I should never have given you my contact details.  Everyone else thinks I’m dead.”

“Hey, that hurts my feelings, man.  You know I can keep a secret.”

Knile jabbed a finger at him.  “If you ever call me again, I’ll personally come and
kick the few remaining teeth out of your head–”

“No, I’m serious, man,” Fallon called after him.  “Just listen, will you?”

Knile stopped and turned back to him.  “A passkey,” he said doubtfully.  “That’s w
hat this is about?”

“Yes, that’s what I said.”

“Yeah, and I need a hacked passkey like a hole in the head right now.”

“It’s not hacked,” Fallon said earnestly.  “It’s got your name on it.”

Knile raised his eyebrows, unable to contain his surprise.  He walked slowly back toward the table as Fallon nervously placed another wad of meat in his mouth.

“There’s a passkey with my name on it,” Knile repeated slowly.

“Yeah, buddy.  That’s what I said.  It’s legit.  Someone up there wants you out of
here
.  Someone likes you.”

Knile’s eyes narrowed.  “That’s impossible.”

“Hey, this information came from Jon Hanker himself over an encrypted channel,” Fallon said, holding up a worn holophone that was attached to his belt.  “It’s legit.”

Knile worked his jaw
as he considered.  He shook his head.  “It’s bullshit.  It’s a trap.”

“I’ll tell you what it is,” Fallon said.  “It’s your only chance of ever getting out.”  He lifted another handful of food, shaking his head disdainfully at it.  “Look at what you did,” he said, hoisting it for Knile to see.  “Fell in the dirt.  Now it’s covered in shit.”

Knile recoiled from the foul-smelling meat
and took a step back, turning away.  Fallon took another wistful look at
the handful, then shrugged and stuffed it in his mouth, making no attempt to clean it.

“I don’t want the passkey,” Knile said decisively.  “You can tell Jon to do what he wants with it.  Tell him to give it to some other sucker.  Let them see if they can get off-world.”

“Makes no difference to me,” Fallon called as Knile walked away.  “I get my commission whether you take the ticket or not.”

Knile reached the door and began to fumble at the locks, and in moments the larger man appeared behind him, wiping his fingers messily on his shirt.

“Here,” Fallon said.  “Look out.”  He flipped the array of locks adroitly and removed the bar, pulling the door open with a creak.  “It’s a shame you’re walking away from this.  It really is.  Giving up a chance of a future.”

“Whatever.”

Fallon licked at his fingers.  “Well.  Nice seein’ you again.”

Knile stood in the threshold, looking out into the darkened street.  A few doors down he could hear the sound of an infant wailing, and further the white noise of the inner city of Link – unseen people and machines going about their work beyond the reach of the slums.  He hadn’t missed this place in all the time he’d been gone, but for some reason he now found it difficult to leave.

He thought of the last time he’d seen Mianda, surrounded by smoke and fire, staring at him with those piercing blue eyes through the haze
. 
After
he’d lost her up there, he’d wondered if there was a reason to keep going at all.  She’d meant everything to him
, more than all else in this world put together.

He’d waited years for her to send word, to give him a sign that she’d made it through.

Now after all this time he’d finally gotten the call from Fallon, returning at great risk from his exile to a place in which
he wasn’t welcome.  Throughout the long journey he’d thought of nothing but
Mianda – what she might look like now, the subtle ways in which she might have changed, the sound of her voice.
  The things she would have to tell him.

But all of those thoughts had amounted to nothing.

Knile could only stand in the doorway, crestfallen.

We were meant to leave Earth
together, Mianda.  You and me.

So what was he to do now? 
Return to the lowlands to carry out a meagre existence moving
from one place to the next?  S
crounging for food and seeking employment from the few folk who still lived out there?
  He’d done it for years
while he waited, but what was the point of going back without Mianda?

Maybe it wasn’t the brick and mortar of the city that he’d felt closing in around him, he thought, but the world itself, the very hands of this choked and suffocating e
arth that threatened to block his path at every turn.  There was no escape from it here in the city, and there was no escape from it in the lowlands either.

To live on Earth was to endure a slow and excruciating death sentence.  That fact was inescapable.

And Mianda wasn’t going to magically reappear.  She was gone.  He had to admit that to himself now.

We we
re meant to leave together.  Now it seems
the only option is for me to leave alone.

“Well, don’t stand there forever, buddy,” Fallon said behind him.  “It’s not safe out there.  Not in the slums.  Not outside Link.  You forgotten that?”

Knile half turned.

The time for waiting is over.

“Show me the encryption code,” Knile said decisively.

Fallon stared at him blankly for a moment, then dug the holophone out of his pocket.

“Okay, sure.”

Knile snatched it from him and examined the transmission from Hanker, copying the accompanying code and running it against a
verification algorithm.  It checked out.

He handed the holophone back to Fallon.  “All right,” he said.  “Tell Hanker I’m coming.”

“Oh.  Changed your mind, huh?” Fallon said, delighted.  “Thought you would.  Good choice.”  He bobbed his large head approvingly.  “You, uh, gonna need help getting there?”

Knile began to walk out into the street.  “No.  I’ll manage.”

“You sure?  Things have changed around here.  I can arrange something for a small fee–”

“I said no.”

“Sure, sure,” Fallon said.  “Whatever you like.  But there’s one other thing.”

Knile stopped and turned again, boots scuffing quietly on the road.  “What now?”

“Well, there’s a short fuse on this thing,” Fallon said, almost embarrassed.  “Took a while for them to get word to me, then a while for me to get word to you…”

“Spit it out.”

“You’ve gotta be at the Stormgates
in forty-eight hours.”  He reached down and checked the holophone again.  “Uh, make that forty-six hours, twenty minutes.  If you’re not, your ride’s gone.  Those passkeys are non-refundable and you won’t get another chance–”

“I know how it works,” Knile said curtly.  “Anything else?”

Fallon shrugged.  “Maybe a tip?”

In answer, Knile swivelled and began to walk away.

“How about a thank you?” Fallon called af
ter him.  “A nod of gratitude?”

Knile
waited in the shadows as the door closed.  He heard Fallon engage the locks again, and as the man’s footsteps receded back inside the apartment Knile began to creep along the nearest wall.  With the clock running, he’d need to find a way of getting deeper within the city as soon as possible.

There was no time to rest.  He had a lot to do in a short amount of time.

Forgoing stealth for a moment, Knile stepped out from under the eaves and into the middle of the street, looking out across the expanse of the city ahead.  Soaring into the night sky and dwarfing everything around it, a great edifice of curved black steel rose up like a mountain in the distance, stretching kilometres upward into the heavens.  Dotted by a thousand pinpricks of light, it was so vast that it seemed to cast a shadow across the city even in the dark of evening. 

A thing to evoke both awe and trepidation, it filled Knile with conflicting emotions.  Not only was it his hope and
his salvation, but it was the refuge of his darkest memories as well.

It was the last place he had seen Mianda alive.

The last way off this dying world.

They called it the Reach.

2

The outer edges of the city, the area collectively known as the slums, were not unfamiliar
to Knile.  Before escaping to the lowlands he’d spent many years
living
here, scratching out a lowly existence as he dreamed of something more.  Within these streets he’d made a lot of allies, as well as a lot of e
nemies, but he doubted there were
many of those left on either side.  The slums churned through people fast – inhabitants either died of starvation or from
exposure to
toxins, were murdered for their possessions, or somehow got past the wall that led to the inner city of Link.  There were only the odd few, like Fallon, who carved out an existence here on a more permanent basis.

Knile stood for a moment in the street, staring up at the sky.  The Reach was like a giant magnet, he thought, thrusting out from the earth, cold and hard and uncaring.  Dragged toward it from all directions were the detritus of humanity, the few people that still inhabited the planet bunching up against its walls like flotsam from a
far-
distant tide.  The Reach stood like a beacon of hope, a seductive and mesmerising vision that made promises of freedom to all those who would look upon it.

For all but a few, those promises were left unfulfilled.

As Knile watched, a searchlight swept out from the Reach and waved back and forth, falling upon the luminous outline of a dirigible that hung in the sky like a pale, bloated tick.  It lingered there for a few moments before winking out again, and the dirigible was once more lost against the black sky.

“Idiots,” Knile muttered, shaking his head.

There was another explosion in the distance, and with that he decided to get moving.  There was no law out here, no sanctuary, and the gangs that had formed amid the chaos spent most of their time trying to destroy each other as they attempted to climb an imaginary hierarchy.  Their tussles with each other were frequent, thei
r battles for supremacy a never-ending cycle.