Skybreach (The Reach #3) (19 page)

19

Veronica Valen stared at the reflection in the mirror and could only wonder at what she saw there.  The woman who regarded her seemed pale, gaunt to the point of malnourishment.  Her flesh was clammy and sallow, and the bones on her neck stood out as if the skin had been shrink-wrapped against them.

She was closer in appearance to a reanimated corpse, she decided, than a living woman with blood flowing through her veins.

And right now she felt like it.  Her eyeballs throbbed and the back of her head ached with such vehemence that she was barely able to think straight.  The pain radiated out in rhythmic waves, like the pounding of the ocean against the shore, and she could find no respite from it, no matter how long she massaged her temples or her neck, no matter how many different ways she tried to relax.

These attacks had become all too common over the past twelve months.  Her stre
ss levels had begun to peak with alarming frequency, bringing with them these debilitating physical side effects that had rendered her ability to cope, to make decisions, so much more difficult than before.

Over the past year she had found that each time she looked in the mirror she seemed diminished, lesser than she had been before, like she was fading from existence.

Earth, the Reach, and this dismal undertaking she’d been given were slowly but surely sucking the very life from her.

She glanced over her shoulder at the richly appointed room from which she conducted the majority of her affairs.  An expansive window looked out upon the Earth far above, the refracted light playing across the darkened interior of the office in muted tones.  A pair of easy chairs sat over by the doorway, her preferred location for interviewing those who came to see her, and a well-stocked bar rested against the wall, containing a broad selection of delicacies from all over the Outworlds.

On her desk, the terminal sat softly glowing, idle.

Her call had not yet been returned.

She pulled on a handle below the basin, and a glowing blue strip opened out, revealing the clutter of implements and tools she’s been using to make herself appear respectable: a hair brush, lipstick, foundation, concealer and
eyeliner.  At the rear of the drawer was the most effective weapon in the struggle to maintain her appearance – a black box
labelled
with a series of Chinese ideograms in bold red print.  Valen flipped the lid with trembling fingers and looked inside, finding four narrow applicators made of glinting, burnished black metal within.  She grasped one of these and lifted it out, then closed the box and eased the drawer shut again.

She lifted the applicator and tilted it, allowing the light from the window to
play off the clear fluid capsule that was clasped inside the metal prongs of the device.  A short needle protruded from the end, glinting cruelly.

Valen felt her heartbeat accelerate, licked her lips in anticipation.  Still, a voice in the back of her mind caused her to hesitate.

A year ago she’d rarely needed to use the drug, this crutch – Paradise, as they referred to it here, or Breeze down on Earth – and yet now the cold prick of the needle had become a kind of religion
.  She knew that she shouldn’t have been using this frequently, that she was sliding further down into oblivion with every application, but what was she to do?  The headaches were unrelenting, returning again and again no matter how she tried to keep them at bay.  The moment the drug wore off she inevitably found herself crippled once again.

She could no longer function without the stuff.

Use it
, she thought. 
This will all be over soon.  Once you’re safely out of harm’s way, there will be time to purge your body of this demon.

If her superiors in the Consortium knew that she had developed this habit, they
would have been horrified.  Incensed.  They would put her head on a platter in a heartbeat.  Paradise was illegal in almost every colony and habitat, and for someone at the level of an Administrator to be using it was unthinkable.

Just get it over with.

She turned back to the mirror and tilted her face upward, prodding with an index finger to find the soft, fleshy part under her right eye.  Then she lifted the applicator and slid the needle into her
skin with the practised ease of a seasoned junkie, lightly depressing the button on the end of the device to release the payload.

Once upon a time the needle had caused her to squirm with discomfort, but no longer.  Now it was simply a key sliding into a lock that opened the doorway to relief, to bliss.

The effect was almost immediate.  Valen exhaled slowly, the tension flowing out of her like the receding of a black tide, and she allowed the applicator to fall from her fingers.  It clattered on the basin with a hollow metallic ting.

Valen allowed her face to dip, expelling the last of the air from her lungs, and then she breathed in again.  The moment was almost orgasmic in its intensity, enough to send a tingling thrill through her arms and down her wrists, into her fingers.  The pounding in her head became nothing more than a dull echo, a memory.

At that moment the terminal behind her came to life, emitting a high-pitched melody, and it cut through her newly found cocoon of bliss like a machete.  Valen turned her shoulders sharply, resentful that she should be interrupted
now
, in the only moment of her day when she experienced anything close to pleasure.  She almost considered shutting off the terminal and return
ing to her own little slice of paradise.

But she knew that was not an option.  She had to take this call.

She shook off her mood and strode over to the desk, taking a seat before the terminal.  She had work to do.

The message was from Ji, as she had expected.  With Mars approaching aphelion, the amount of time it took for a message to travel between there and Habitat Thirty-One was an agonising seventeen minutes
, meaning that there was a half-hour wait between asking a question and receiving a response.

Now the wait was over.  She sat, bug eyed and breathless as the static cleared, and Ji’s face appeared on the screen.

“Veronica, I got your message.  I appreciate you taking the time to explain the situation down there to me,”
he began.  He was a handsome man with neatly combed black hair, and, she thought enviously, he looked in much better shape than she herself did. 
“It sounds like you have a lot to deal with there, but I…”
  He steepled his fingers together. 
“I can’t help but feel that you’re going about this all wrong.”

“Fuck you,” she hissed bitterly, knowing that he couldn’t hear her.

“I know you don’t want to sit around listening to me all day, and that there are matters to which you must attend, so I’ll try to make this brief.”

“I’ll bet,” she sneered.  As she leaned forward she felt wetness on her cheek.  She dabbed at her eye with a handkerchief and it came away with small spot of crimson, the remnants of the needle’s bite.

“Veronica, I’m sure you appreciate the value of the installation of which you are the overseer.  The Earth branch of the Consortium, while not as profitable as it once was, is still considered to be a legitimate source of income for the company.  I don’t need to tell you this, of course.  You’ve seen the figures yourself.  You know that the creds are still flowing.”

Valen gritted her teeth but refrained from snapping at the transmission again.  There was no point
.

“Now, I do understand that these criminals are a headache for you.  They’ve endangered our own personnel, and that’s never an optimal situation.”
  He leaned forward. 
“But Veronica, once you pull out of the Reach, your foothold will be lost.  There will be no going back.  You understand this, don’t you?”

Yes, you patronising fuck,
she thought.
  Of course I understand that.

“I’ve spoken with President Faulk on this matter – he’s on sabbatical here at Mars, as it turns out – and he’s in agreement with me.  This decision of yours was made too hastily, without the proper authorisation.  You did not even bother to consult with your peers.  It’s unacceptable, Veronica.

“So here’s what I suggest you do.  Rescind the command to evacuate, have your people return to their stations and resume business as usual.  I understand that there’s going to be some disquiet amongst them, perhaps even panic, but you’ll allay their fears.  You’ll restore order.  Business will resume as usual until such time as the board has convened and deliberated on this matter.”

He gave her a condescending smile.
“I look forward to your report once this is done.”

Valen reached out to close the transmission window, tapping the screen so hard that the terminal rocked
back on its base and almost toppled over.  She sat there fuming, staring at the blank screen with her fists balled at her side as she formulated a thousand vitriolic responses to throw back at him.

Then she took a deep breath, calmed herself, and began to transmit.

“Ji, so good to hear from you,” she grated, a plastic smile on her face.  “I hear the weather on Mars gets better with every passing year.  The terraforming has progressed far enough that one can actually walk the surface without equipment, yes?  No wonder President Faulk would choose to take his sabbatical there.”

The smile melted away.  “Unfortunately, I will not be complying with your instructions.  Not today, not tomorrow, and not ever.  You see, I
have been
given full autonomy over the administration of this facility.  My communication to you was not a plea for your endorsement, but merely an advisement of the actions that I am undertaking.  Consider it a friendly notification, if you will.”

She settled back in her chair, enjoying her diatribe.  It was almost cathartic, in a way.

“You see, Ji, this is how it is.  I’ve been stuck here at
the wrong end
of the Outworlds, knee-deep in the dregs of humanity for longer than I care to remember. 
Years
.  And every one of those years that tick by, things get harder.  The margins get smaller, and the decisions I am
compelled
to make get tougher.  I’ve been
forced
to cut almost all expenditure on infrastructure at the other end of the Wire.  Did you know that?  The Reach has been falling apart for a decade now, and I don’t have the creds to fix it.  President Faulk has turned a blind eye to my requests.  The well has gone dry, Ji. 

“And now my people are under threat.  They’re being murdered.  And for what?  The few lousy creds that still seep through this sewer like droplets of excrement?  No, I will not have it.  We’re getting out of here.  We’re evacuating this facility and heading to the nearest hop, the moon.  Tranquility Two, to be exact.  It will be done within a couple of weeks.  If you want to change that, you’d better get off your lazy ass and come over here yourself.”  She gestured angrily.  “Except you won’t do that, will you, Ji?  You’ll continue to sit there on Mars, where the creds are plentiful, and where the business runs itself, blissfully unaware of what it means to make choices that affect the lives of those around you.”

Her hands tightened on the armrests of her chair.  “
That’s
my report.  One of my subordinates will be happy to respond to any more questions you may have.”

She terminated the transmission, checking her watch.  In seventeen minutes Ji would hear her words.  She just wished that she could see that smug little smile slip away from his face when it did.

Without wasting time, she selected the contact details for her personal assistant and waited for her to answer.

Restore control, Veronica.  Save as many of your people as you can and get out of here.  That’s your job now.

A moment later, a young woman with short, neatly groomed hair appeared on the screen.

“Yes, Administrator?”

“Get me Murtas Dux.  Immediately.”

20

Duran was confronted by chaos at every turn.

For the first ten minutes after the explosions, he wondered if he would even make it out of there alive.  Thick black smoke came rolling down the corridors around him as the overtaxed ventilation systems gave out.  Painted red by the emergency lighting system, the clouds seemed almost demonic, like something that had been spewed from t
he bowels of H
ell to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting masses above.  The smell of burnt things was already thick in his nostrils, and Duran knew that if he lingered here much longer he would succumb to asphyxiation.

This entire level was about to become one giant tomb.

He tried to figure out the quickest way to reach safety, and recalled that there had been a staircase that led downward not far from here.  Although he was somewhat disorient
ated, he still felt confident he could find it again in quick time.