Earthbound (The Reach, Book 1) (47 page)

Duran hoped that by calling out he had distracted them and delayed the execution for a few moments at least, long enough for Duran to intervene.  He had no idea whether Knile would believe what he’d said about Mianda, but at this point the girl was about the only thing Duran could use for leverage.

Of course, if they wanted something else from him, such as information, they might be in the process of moving him to another location.  Duran would have been better served waiting for
them at the door in that case, but since he didn’t know for sure, he couldn’t take the chance of sitting idly by and hoping that Oberend came out alive.

Now, through that weird hum of the field generator, Duran could hear the furtive movements of the other men as they spread out through the room.  He hadn’t identified himself as an Enforcer yet, and he doubted that it would make any difference – these kind of men respected no one, least of all the men in black, so he knew he was probably going to have to incapacitate them or kill them outright if he was to get through to Oberend.

I’m probably not going to leave this room alive.
  It was the same thought that had occurred to him when he’d spoken to his father not so long ago. 
So be it
.

The twisting light played tricks on the imagination in here.  Three or four times Duran thought that men were coming at him, their shadows appearing from around the sharp corners of the baffle walls, but there was nothing.  They were merely ghosts conjured by the light emanating from the field generator.

Duran looked behind him, back from where he had come.  The light was easier to cope with in that direction, coming from over his shoulder.  On a hunch, he began to move back toward the door, and a moment later he almost collided with one of the men in suits.  With the light in his eyes, the man reacted more slowly, and Duran was able to grasp his gun hand and force it up toward the ceiling.  The man grunted in surprise and
t
he gun went off, and Duran pistol whipped the man in the temple.  As he crumpled, another man appeared around the next corner, gun raised, and Duran fired, hitting him with a neat double tap to the chest.  The man fell back against the wall and slid to the floor without a sound, a dark patch spreading across his shirt.

Duran kept moving, taking the impetus and hoping to take down more of them if they’d all followed each other down the same path, but his luck did not extend that far.  There were no more here.

He doubled back to the entrance again, but,
upon finding no one there, continued around the perimeter of the baffles, strafing and checking each in turn.  He was not picki
ng up the sound of movement any
more, and he wondered if there were any men left.  Had they bound and gagged Oberend somewhere?  Was he lying in the darkness, waiting to be found?

There was a subtle clicking sound, and Duran realised someone was at the door.

He responded swiftly, moving with small, rapid steps back the way he had come.

There was a muzzle flash in the gloom, and Duran spun like a top.  He barely heard the sound of the gun firing.  One minute he was on his feet, and the next he was face down, gasping for breath.

Now, even though his ears were ringing, he could hear the footsteps again, and then the shooter laughed, a cruel and hollow sound.  He was closing in.

Duran got up, gritting his teeth at the pain in his shoulder.  He half slid along the wall, half ran, and then he found his balance again.  Turning, he brought the gun up, waiting for his pursuer to appear, but there was no one there.

He melted into the baffles again, attempting to control his ragged breathing, trying to ignore the pain in his shoulder and neck.  That laughter came again, and it bounced around through the baffles like a dozen voices all at once.  It was everywhere and it was nowhere.

Duran closed his eyes and steeled himself.

Tunks was right about you.  So was Prazor.  You’re a misguided, self-important fool who’s going to die because he was too proud to admit to his own flaws.

“No,” he whispered desperately.

You’re a failure, and when you die in this place there will be no one to miss you.  No one to mourn you.

“No.”

Everything you’ve ever done has amounted to nothing.

“Fuck you!”
he roared, his voice bouncing around the enclosed space, much as the man’s laughter had done.  Now he was moving quickly and with purpose.  The pain in his shoulder focussed his mind and brought it sharpness and clarity, blowing away the hazy fog that had been suffocating him a moment before.

He reached the open area of the field generator, and from the next baffle emerged another man in a suit, who was glancing around as he tried to identify the source of the voice.  They locked eyes, and both brought up their guns, but Duran was the quicker, firing twice and then a third time as he hit the man in the thigh, hip and chest.  The man cried out and fell to the floor, clutching at his side.  The gun went limp in his grasp, and he lay there squirming pitifully.

The man laughed again as Duran approached, more weakly this time.

“Taken down by a fucking Enforcer,” he choked, still laughing and wild-
eyed.  “Hope no one hears about this.”

“Put the gun down,” Duran said to the man with the star tattoo on his cheekbone.  “You don’t have to die here.”

“Die here, die somewhere else, what’s the fuckin’ difference?”

Jordan tried to bring up his gun hand, one last-ditch attempt at glory, but Duran fired another shot and put him down for good.

41

Wilt pushed Knile toward the corridor that led to the main elevators, but Knile baulked and shied away, resisting his captor’s attempts to manoeuvre him.

“Are you stupid?” Knile managed to get out, even though Wilt’s forearm was pressing painfully into his neck.  “You might have an ID chip that works in that elevator, but as soon as I step in there it’s going to shut down.  You’ll have a dozen Enforcers up your ass in about thirty seconds.”

Wilt slowed.  “Then what do you suggest?”

“I have another way.”  He jerked his head at a long, narrow corridor leading off on a different tangent.  “Back there.”

Wilt seemed to weigh this up, then swung the two of them around.

“Get moving.”

Knile directed the taller man the only way he could – by gasping out instructions and nodding his head as far as Wilt would allow.  The man’s grip was like iron, and worse, it was relentless.  There was no respite.  Knile felt on the verge of passing out several times as he struggled for breath, but Wilt showed not the slightest hint of compassion.  He kept up the pressure, not allowing Knile more than an inch in which to move.

“Y’know, you’ve… really done things the hard way, Wilt,” Knile wheezed out at one point.  “Why didn’t you just… post a bunch of men in the Atrium and wait for me to show up?  I had to… come through there eventually, right?”

“I’m not quite as foolish as you seem to believe, Knile.  I know that a group of armed men standing around in the Atrium is exactly the kind of behaviour that would gather the interest of the Redmen.  They don’t take kindly to that kind of thing in their territory.  You know it, and I know it.”

“I don’t know anything,” Knile said.

“So you keep saying.  Now keep moving.”

They eventually came to a bulky, rounded door with a yellow ‘W’ stencilled across it in faded yellow paint.

“Through there,” Knile said.  “It’s open.  I unlocked it earlier.”

Wilt moved to it and slammed it open with his palm, then reeled back at the sight of the outside world just beyond, the open sky above.

“What is this?” Wilt demanded as air from outside howled around them.  “What’s the idea?”

“This is our way up,” Knile said simply.  “We climb.”

“What are you playing at?” Wilt said, tightening his grip further.

“It’s the… only way…” Knile spluttered.

“It can’t be.”

“It is,” Knile said.  “And the ride is leaving in a few very short minutes, so we can stand here arguing about alternatives, if you like–”

“All right, then,” Wilt said, releasing his grip and pushing Knile forward.  He raised the gun to Knile’s back.  “Don’t bother about messing with respirators.  We don’t have time.  Just go.”

The door slammed shut and the two men made their way along the narrow steel walkway.  Under their feet there was a drop of dizzying proportions.  Knile had done the calculations on a free fall from the top of the Reach, and he knew that anyone who tipped over the edge would have more than a minute to contemplate the impact before the unyielding earth rushed up to meet them far below.

It was not a place he wanted to slip.

“Where do we go?” Wilt said.

“Over there.”  Knile pointed to a set of thin cylinders that were mounted horizontally into the wall, spaced about a metre apart.

“What are those things?”

“Sensors that the military used back in the old days.  I’m not sure what they were for, but I do know that they go all the way up to the Atrium.”

Knile could see that Wilt didn’t like it, but also that he knew he’d been backed into a corner.  There was no other choice now.

“All right, but I’m going first,” Wilt said.  “That way I can be sure that you don’t reach the top before me and run off.”

“Heaven forbid,” Knile said drily, hitching his backpack up onto his shoulders.  He made an elaborate flourish with his hand.  “After you.”

The wind whipped around them and the walkway creaked unsteadily as they moved along it.  Knile was glad there weren’t more men than just the two of them – he doubted the steel would carry much more weight.  It was rusted and worn and probably hadn’t been used in a very long time.

Wilt moved cautiously, hiding his uncertainty behind a veil of hostility and coldness, but Knile could see it was there in his eyes, like a candle flickering at the bottom of a deep and empty well.

Knile himself couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t uneasy about the climb.  When he and Ursie had climbed down at the Greenhouse they had been secured by ropes, so there had always been a safety net to fall back upon.  Here, however, there was no such thing.  One slip would mean a very long plummet through the
murky twilight, and then a bone-shattering crunch at the bottom.

Wilt began his climb somewhat awkwardly, the gun in one hand.  He divided his time equally between glancing upward in the hope of seeing the edge of the Atrium, and glaring back down at Knile through the sights of the weapon to ensure that his captive was following.  Knile didn’t flinch, returning Wilt’s gaze with silent stoicism as he racked his brain to come up with a solution, a way out of this predicament.

There has to be a way out of this, doesn’t there?
he thought. 
There has to be a way to overpower this guy.

But what did Knile have in his favour?  Wilt had the higher ground and he had the gun.  He had superior strength and speed.

The only thing Knile had was a counter on his wrist that was telling him his time was running out one second at a time.  Telling him that his dream was slipping away.

Finally he stopped and sighed, then leaned his head forward against the cool metal of the Reach wall.  Every part of his body ached.  He was drained both mentally and physically by the relentless pace of the last forty-eight hours, by this quest to stay ahead of the Enforcers, Wilt, and the ruthless schedule that had been handed to him.

And what had he gained from all of this?  Where did that leave him?  Stuck on a wall with a madman with no way out.

Knile pulled his body inward against the rungs and took a deep breath.  Then he closed his eyes.

At that moment Wilt’s holophone rang, and with some difficulty he managed to answer it while still keeping the gun on Knile.

“What is it?” he said.  Then a moment later, “Are you sure?”

Knile couldn’t hear what was being said on the other end of the line, but he could tell by Wilt’s voice that there was a problem.

“Where was he?  How did it happen?” Wilt said desperately.

Sounds like this Tucker guy isn’t going to show up after all
, Knile thought. 
What else would get Wilt so wound up?

“No, there’s no time,” Wilt said.  “I’ll figure something out.”

He closed the connection and then hung there for a few moments as he gathered his thoughts.  Knile could imagine what those thoughts might be.

“I can see where this is going,” Knile said quietly.

“What?” Wilt called down, pointing the gun at Knile again.

Knile raised his face.  “I said I can see where this is going.”

“Keep climbing.”

“No.”

Wilt’s face contorted with rage, and he descended one rung back toward Knile.

“I said keep climbing.”

“And I said no.”

“Time is running out, Knile.  You said so yourself.  What are you playing at?”