Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1) (42 page)

“Mianda never looked at me the way I looked at her,” he began, struggling to bring his voice under control.  “I tried to make her see that I was the one for her for so long.  For
years
.  I said and did all the right things, lavished attention on her.  I did everything I could, and yet she never came round to me.”  He smiled distantly.  “All my life I found a way to get things done, things that other people couldn’t do.  I found a way through every part of the Reach, but I never found a way to make the person I cared about most love me for who I was
.”

“Why haven’t you told me this before?”

“You think it’s easy to talk about this?  To admit the only person you loved despised you in return?”

“No, of course not.”  Ursie shifted uncomfortably, not really knowing how to respond to this side of Knile that was so different to what she had seen before.  He didn’t say anything more, so she added, “If you want to talk about it, I’ll listen.”

He mulled over that offer for a few moments, then shrugged despondently.

“Yeah, sure.  Why not?  It’s about time someone knew the truth.”  He settled back against the railing and smiled bitterly.  “Clever Knile, the guy who can always find a way out of every situation.  The guy who always comes up with a new angle when all hope seems lost.  Guess what I did, Ursie?  I came up with the plan to win her over, a trick that couldn’t fail.  I would get us both off-world together at the same time, arrange for us to make a life on one of the outer colonies.  Pe
rfect, right?”

“Sounds nice,” Ursie said.

“She agreed to it.  I mean, who wouldn’t?  The chance to escape this earthbound existence?  How could she say no?”  Knile’s mouth twisted bitterly again.  “Everything was going
according
to plan.  I opened all the right doors and made all the right moves, kept one step ahead of the Enforcers.  I knew they had their eye on me, but they couldn’t stop me.  They never even got close.

“After we made it through Lux, Mianda started asking questions.  She wanted to know how I got the passkeys.”  He shrugged.  “So I told her.  I told her that I’d taken them from a married couple who were leaving together.  She was horrified, aghast that I was capable of doing that to someone, that I would steal their dreams away from them like that.  The higher we went, the less she talked to me, and then by the time we reached the Atrium, she’d lost it.  She wouldn’t go any further.  She stopped inside the Stormgates and wouldn’t move.  She couldn’t go through with it.”  He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head.  “We were right there.  Right
fucking
there, so close to the end.”  When he opened his eyes they were once again glistening.  “I’ll remember her words forever.  She said, ‘I can’t keep going, Knile.  Not with you.  I can’t be with you.’  I told her that I loved her, that I’d done all of this for her, but she only replied, ‘No, you don’t love me.  You only love yourself.  Look at what you’ve done to other people.  You could never care about anyone but yourself.’”

Knile’s head dropped, and it seemed that he would say no more.  Ursie moved over and sat down beside him.

“I’m sorry, Knile.  I didn’t know.”

“We would have made it,” he said softly, his eyes focussed on some far-distant point.  “We would have left this world behind if only she’d kept walking.”

Ursie reached out a hand and patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

“So you see,” Knile said caustically, “that wasn’t Mianda down in Lux.  She would never have said those words to me.  Or, if it
was
her…”  He tilted up one of his shoulders in a shrug.  “If it was her, she could only have been talking to someone else.”

He reached out and snagged his backpack and pulled it back to his side, then gathered up the holophone.  He paused for a moment as he considered what to do.

“I have to call someone,” he said, and Ursie nodded without question.  He scrolled through the call history and found the first number in the sequence, a call that had been made to the phone the morning before.

The number began to ring.

“Hello?”  Talia’s face appeared on the screen, and she peered at her own display as she struggled to make out the caller.  “Knile, is that you?”

“Hey, Talia,” Knile said, his voice still restrained as he struggled with his emotions.

“What’s going on?” Talia said warily.  “Did you make it off-world?”

“Not yet.”

Talia stared at him through the display, aware that he was teetering on some emotional precipice even through the image coming through was hazy and stuttering.  Her voice softened.

“Look, Knile, I’m sorry about what I said to you yesterday when I left–”

“It’s okay, Talia.  Everything you said was true, and I needed to hear it.”

“I was taking my frustrations out on you, and you didn’t deserve that.”  She paused.  “You didn’t really need my help to get back into Grove, did you?”

“No.”

“So why did you come to me?”

Knile exhaled shakily.  “I guess I just wanted to see a friendly face again after all these years.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen that.”

Talia smiled, relieved, as if a great weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

“It was good to see you, too, Knile.”  Her smile weakened.  “How did things go with Roman?”

The heat in the Plant Rooms was making him sweat, he realised.  He shrugged out of his jacket and dumped it on the floor, then began to roll up the sleeves of his shirt.

“That’s what I’m calling you about,” Knile said, and his voice became firm once again as he brushed away his melancholy, embracing the task at hand.  “Roman’s gotten himself in some trouble, although he doesn’t know it yet.”

“What’s happened?”

“Roman told me that he’s been accepted into a scheme inside the Reach that he believes is a stepping stone to getting off-world.  It’s called the Candidate program and it’s run by this old guy called Honeybul.  I just met the guy in Lux, and the whole thing is a sham.  It’s a front for a child slavery racket.”

“Oh, god,” Talia moaned in dismay.

“The kids get sold off to the rich in Lux, to be raped or beaten or whatever.  I doubt any survive in the long run, and if they do, I’d hate to be one of them.”

Knile experienced a sharp pang of guilt at the thought of the girl he’d sent into the arms of the Enforcers.  Would they really help her, or simply return her to Honeybul?  He knew which option was more likely.

More collateral damage.  More wreckage left in your wake.  Well done, Knile
, he thought bitterly.

“What are you going to do?” Talia said, and Knile pushed thoughts of the girl aside.

Knile glanced around helplessly.  “Talia, I’m in a bit of a bind.  I have Enforcers after me, I have some maniac with his own private army who’s trying to kill me and take my ticket, and I only have a few hours left before my ride leaves on the Wire.  There’s nothing I can do.”

“So what am I supposed to do, Knile?  I don’t have access to the Reach.  How do I stop this from happening?”

“You have to stop Roman from joining the Candidates.  Go and see him at Grove.  Talk to him.”

“
Talk
to him?” Talia exclaimed.  “Do you remember what happened yesterday morning?  Do you think he’s really going to listen to anything that comes out of my mouth?”

“You have to try, Talia.  You have to get through to him.”

Talia sighed and pressed her hand into her face.  “Okay.  I’ll go and see him.  I’ll try.”

“Thank you, Talia.  Just don’t waste any time about it.  He could be inducted into the program any day.”

There was a noise somewhere within the depths of the level, a metallic clang that sounded like a tool being dropped, and Knile quickly got to his feet.

“I have to go, Talia.”  He swung the backpack onto his shoulder.  “I’m sorry to do this to you.”

“Knile, you–”

Knile killed the call, and in the moment before Talia’s face disappeared he saw something shimmering on his forearm, a reflection from the light of the phone.  Curious, he waved the glowing display over the tag the kid had given him down in Gaslight, the tattoo of the word
Skybreach
, and now he could see dozens of tiny, glittering points responding to the light of the phone like fluorescent algae.

“We should go,” Ursie said, already moving away.

“The tattoo,” Knile said, the conversation with Ursie momentarily forgotten.  “There’s information embedded inside it.”

“What?  Knile, we have to get moving.”

“Hidden data.  Maybe coordinates, or–”

“Knile, come on!”

He finally lowered his arm and began to move after her.

“Sorry, got carried away.”

They began to run, but Knile couldn’t quite shake the words the child had spoken to him back in Gaslight after she had tagged him with the tattoo.

It’s the only way out.

36

Duran waited and stared at his desk phone, his patience running thin.  The inane hold music seeped into his office through the speaker like toxic fumes, driving steel pins into his frayed consciousness.  His finger hovered over the mute button, but he couldn’t bring himself to push it.  After all, this torturous melody was the only thing keeping his exhaustion at bay.  Without it he knew he was likely to slump onto his desk, unconscious.

Mercifully, the music abruptly stopped and Commissioner Prazor appeared on the screen.

“What is it, Alec?” he said sharply, wasting no time with niceties.  “You look like hell,” he added.

“I’m sorry.  I haven’t slept, sir.”

“Still on this Oberend thing, are you?”

“Yes.  That’s what I’m calling about.”

“We’ve been over this, Alec.  I’m not giving you more men.”

“Commissioner, this issue is escalating,” Duran insisted.  “Did you hear about the incident in Lux two hours ago?”

Prazor sighed, exasperated.  “You’re not going to try to pin that on Oberend as well, are you?”

“He was
there
,” Duran fumed, making a poor attempt at holding back his frustration.  “I interviewed three witnesses at the scene who saw Oberend on the premises just before the first shots were fired.”  Prazor opened his mouth to interrupt, but Duran kept going.  “I also have reason to believe that a drug lord named Alton Wilt is tied up in this somehow.  There’s going to be more bodies piling up before these two are done, Commissioner.”

“The proper investigations are being conducted on the incident in Lux, and if what you say is true–”

“That’s not good enough!” Duran yelled, thumping his fist on the desk so hard that the phone jumped.  “That’ll take days!”

Prazor bristled at Duran’s tone of voice and took a moment to compose himself.  When he spoke, his voice was even and emotionless.

“Inspector, I’m not authorising any more resources to this manhunt of yours until I have some facts.  Cold hard facts.  I’m also revoking your dispensation to investigate this issue.  Return to your allocated assignments immediately.”

Duran ground his teeth together.  “And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll end up back in the slums, but this time you won’t be wearing an Enforcer uniform when you go.”

The image disappeared and the phone went dark.  Duran continued to stare at it as if he might bring the commissioner back by willpower alone, but nothing happened.

Infuriated, he gathered his things from the desk and got up, then looked back at the phone one more time.

This might be your last chance.

He turned his face to the door and considered walking out, but suddenly that fury inside him seemed to burn itself out, and nothing was left but the smouldering ruins of his anger.  He sat at the desk and punched in another number.

The phone rang twice, three times.  Four.  Then an old man appeared on the screen, adjusting his spectacles and attempting to smooth the tufts of errant grey hair on his balding pate.

“Hello?” the old man said.

“Dad?”

The old man ceased his fussing and peered closer.

“Alec?  Is that you?” he said, disbelieving.

“Yeah.  It’s me.”

“Well, I… I thought you were gone.  I thought you must be–”

“I’m still here.  I’m still around.”

“What happened to you, Alec?  Where have you been?”

Duran rubbed at his eyebrows, staring down at his desk so that he didn’t have to look the old man in the eyes.

“I made a lot of mistakes, Dad.  A lot of wrong moves.”

“It happens to us all.”

“No.  Not like this.”

“Where have you been, Alec?  I haven’t heard from you in years.”

Duran struggled to rein in his emotions.  “They sent me away, Dad.  They punished me for all the things I did wrong.”  He took a deep breath.  “I’m sorry, Dad.  I didn’t want you to know.”