Skybreach (The Reach #3) (11 page)

“How does it work?” she said.

Heck stepped over and looked down at the device.  “It’s pretty simple.”  He pointed at the screen.  “You enter your contact details here, and the signal goes out through this high gain antenna.”  He indicated to the long protuberance.  “It’s powerful enough to reach the relays down on the surface, if that’s what you wanted.  It would be just like calling someone on their holophone.”  He jabbed a finger vaguely over his shoulder.  “These are used by the Consortium techs when they’re out on the job.”

Ursie stared down at the device, almost daunted by the idea that she now had the power at her fingertips to talk to people down on Earth.  It had seemed like such an insurmountable gulf just a few moments before, a chasm with no way across.

What the hell am I going to say?
she thought.  Then something occurred to her.

The message that she wanted to convey to Earth could not be overheard by anyone else.  Not Heck, that was for sure, and preferably not even by Tobias.  The things that she wanted to talk about would be viewed as conspiracy, or treason, and Ursie was already in enough trouble as it was.  She didn’t want to add any further complications to the situation if she could help it.

She gave Heck her sweetest smile and tried to look coy.

“I don’t suppose I could take it away for just a little bit?”

Heck shook his head.  “No, I can’t let you do that.”

She looked to Tobias for help, but he merely nodded encouragingly.

“Go ahead, Ursie.  What number are you gonna call?”

That brought up another problem.  She didn’t know the number of the person she was trying to reach.

This is hopeless.  Why did I think I could make it work?

She handed the longwave back to Heck.  “Don’t worry about it.  I don’t even know the number.”

“You can use the directory,” Heck suggested.  “There are listings for a few restaurants in Lux, bars in Gaslight.  Even the Consortium consulates.”  He seemed to regret saying that almost immediately.  “Just don’t call anyone important,” he added hastily.  “They won’t take kindly to pranks.”

Maybe if I had more time with the longwave to myself, I could figure something out
, Ursie thought. 
I could find a way to reach him.

She raised her eyes and looked at Heck, who was watching her expectantly.

“Do you need some help?” he said.

You need to convince him, Ursie.

She reached out tentatively with her mind toward Heck and was immediately assaulted by the throbbing pain behind her eyeballs again, the needles poking into her cranium.  It was not as severe as the last time she had grasped toward Tobias, fortunately, but it was still harsh enough to make her reel backward and clamp her eyes shut.

As the world went fuzzy and black she was subliminally aware of the longwave beginning to slip from her grasp.

Ursie flung her eyes open and came back to reality, snatching the longwave protectively to her chest.  The two men were standing there regarding her curiously.  Heck was closer than before, leaning toward her with a concerned look on his face, and behind him Tobias was frowning, perplexed.

Heck glanced back at the old man, then looked at Ursie again.

“You okay?” he said uncertainly.

“Yeah, sure,” she said, a little short of breath.  She gave a nervous little laugh.  “This is just really exciting for me, this…”  She held the longwave up as she tried to find the right words.  “This tech stuff.”

Heck seemed to perk up.  “Really?  I don’t find many people around here who are into this stuff for fun.”

“Oh, yeah,” Ursie said with mo
ck enthusiasm.  “I can’t get
enough of it.”

“So what kind of things do you like doing?”

Ursie stared at him with what she imagined must have been a stupid expression as she tried to think of something to say.  She knew she was out of her depth here, however.  She wasn’t technical
at all
, and if she tried to con Heck he’d see through her instantly.

“Look, I’d love to shoot the breeze with you, Heck, but I need to make this private call first.  How about I come back afterwards so we can chat?”

Heck studied her face for a moment longer.  “All right, you can take the longwave for a bit.  But you need to take very good care of it.”

It worked
, Ursie thought distantly. 
I must have gotten through to him.
  Peripherally she was aware that she’d fallen into old habits with her psycher abilities again – deceit and manipulation in order to get her way – but right now she couldn’t see another option.

“Thank you, Heck,” she said, feeling a little dizzy for some reason.  “Thank you so much.”

“I’ll need it back tomorrow at the latest, all right?”

“Yes, okay.”

“And don’t do anything stupid with it.”

“No, of course not.”  She smiled, genuinely this time, and tucked the longwave under her coat.  “I really appreciate this.”

“Good fella,” Tobias said, clapping Heck on the shoulder.  He smiled at Ursie.  “I told you he was a good man.”

Ursie nodded and thanked Heck again, then turned away and headed for the exit.  It occurred to her that she now knew who it was that she needed to call.  Once she made it back to Tobias’ room she’d be able to speak privately.

Between now and then she had to figure out exactly what she was going to say to the person on the other end.

11

Talia had been looking for Knile throughout each of the rooms at Skybreach headquarters, and finally she found him shoving supplies into his backpack in one of the makeshift storerooms on the northern end.

“There you are,” she said.  “I wondered where you’d gotten to.”

He glanced at her over his shoulder.  “Yeah, I’m all over the place at the moment.  So much to be done.”

“About that,” she said.  “Silvestri wants me to help him go after these materials Yun is
chasing
for the semiconductors.  Do you think I…
?”

Knile raised his eyebrow as he waited for her to finish.

“Do I think you should go with him?” he prompted.  “Why not?”

“Well, it’s just that… you and Roman…”

He straightened and moved over to her, clasping her shoulders reassuringly.

“I know what you’re thinking, Tal.  That as soon as you’re out of sight that something bad is going to happen to Roman and me.”

“Kinda.”

“I can relate to that.  It’s a natural response after what we’ve been through.  The problem is–”

“We don’t have that luxury anymore.”

He grimaced.  “Right.  The three of us can’t just huddle together here and hope that everything turns out okay.  Given what’s happened over the last twenty-four hours, and this new timeframe we’re working on, I don’t see how the three of us can ever escape unless it’s through Skybreach.  I mean, sure, if we’d had a year to plan it, we
might
have been able to set up three hacked passkeys and make all of the other arrangements we needed to get off-world.  I just don’t think we have that long.”  He pointed at the ceiling.  “If we want to get out of here, we need the help of everyone else in Skybreach.  And they need our help in return.”

“So you, Roman and I–”

“We’re still as close as we were before.  We’re just part of something bigger now.  And if Skybreach fails, we lose it all, so we have to put everything into making it work.  If we’re not going to do that, we might as well just pack up and head out into the lowlands right now.  It’s probably safer.”

“That’s not an option.”

“I agree. So for now we have to do what is in the best interests of Skybreach.  Right?”

She nodded reluctantly.  “Yeah.  Makes sense.”

“If Silvestri needs you for this heist, you should go with him.  Roman will be fine here without you.”

“What about you?” Talia said.

Knile looked abashed.  “I’m
going shopping.”

She raised her eyebrow at him.  “Uh-huh.  Looking for new carpets or something?”

“No such luck.  I’m chasing parts for the EMP
.”

“And you’re doing okay?”

He shrugged.  “Uh, yeah.  The EMP isn’t a–”

“No, Knile.”  She gave him a direct stare.  “I don’t mean about the EMP. 
I mean about
you.
  You haven’t really
talked about the whole thing with Emil yet.
  Are you okay?
”

He fidgeted with a strand of wire, curling it around his finger.

“That’s because I’m not exactly sure what I should say.”

“You know that Emil lost touch with reality in the end, right?  You know that his reaction to your arrival in Skybreach was crazy?”

“Was it?” Knile said sharply.  “Sometimes I wonder if he was justified in what he did.”

“Are you kidding me?  The guy poisoned Roman and basically gave you both a death sentence up there in the Infirmary when he sent the Redmen after you.  How is that justified?”

“Didn’t you hear what he said?  I destroyed his life.  When I stole those passkeys from him, it drove his wife to suicide.”

“You didn’t know that was going to happen.”  She reached out and clasped his hand.  It felt cold to the touch.  “You can’t equate one simple theft to the chain of events that followed.”

Knile shook his head disparagingly.  “It just seems that, no matter how much I try to atone for all of the things I did, I just can’t seem to make things right.  How many lives did I destroy?  How much ruin was left in my wake?”

“Yes, you did some bad things,” Talia said, “but look around you.  We’ve all done bad things.  That’s the world we live in.  We’re all trying to get ahead, and sometimes we make poor choices.  The main thing is that you’ve realised your mistake.  You’re trying hard to fix it.”

“Am I?”

“You came back for Roman and me, didn’t you?  That was a choice you didn’t have to make.”

“I guess.”

“So forget about Emil, huh?  It’s over now.  You have to move forward.”  She squeezed his hand.  “People here are depending on you.”

“Yeah,” he said, pressing his lips together.  He didn’t sound convinced.  “Anyway, I’d better get busy putting together this EMP.”

She relented, realising that she wasn’t going to get any more out of him for the time being.

“Are you sure you can build one of those things?” she said.

“It’s not like I haven’t done it before
.”  He lifted his holophone.  “
I’ve made a list of parts
. 
Hopefully I can track them down from some old friends here in Gaslight.”

She grinned wryly.  “
I seem to remember you trying to build one in Link, years ago–”

“That was my first attempt.  It was an experiment.”

“More like a disaster.”  She lifted a finger to her chin in mock thoughtfulness.  “It made one hell of a paper weight, though.”

She was glad to see him smile, and he narrowed his eyes comically.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be right now?” he said.

She turned on her heel.  “Stay safe.”

Silvestri and Talia stepped out of the elevators and wasted no time in starting off down the first of the narrow corridors that led away into the maintenance level.  Silvestri consulted his holophone, where he had brought up a floorplan of the place, then replaced it in his pocket.

“Down this way, then second left,” he said.

Talia glanced behind them nervously.  “How did you find this place, anyway?” she said.

“Remus.  He told me that there used to be a high concentration of tech manufacture in this area, back before it all shut down.  He seemed to think this would be our best bet.”

“What if we run into someone who knows we shouldn’t be here?”

“We talk our way out.”