Skybreach (The Reach #3) (31 page)

Robson finished stuffing his gear into the duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder.  He looked around at the surveillance room that had been his home for the past few years and felt an overwhelming sense of sadness come over him.

He’d enjoyed his time here, enjoyed the company of the friends he’d made.  He was going to miss watching over the Reach, coordinating his operatives.  Hell, he was even going to miss the snarky comments of that grumpy bastard de Villiers.

This wasn’t the life he’d once imagined for himself, but it was as close as he had come to achieving happiness during his time in the Reach.

He briefly considered torching the gear, knowing how dangerous this surveillance equipment could be in the wrong hands, but then shrugged.

Screw it.  You cretins can have it.

In hindsight, Robson knew that he should have left with de Villiers and Jovanovic
.  They’d been right.  The writing had been on the wall.  The end was here and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

No good dwelling on it now
, he supposed.

At least he could still get out of here while he was still breathing, a luxury many others in the Reach would not be afforded.

“I’m on my way out,” he said into the phone as he started along the corridor, but there was no reply from Zoe.  He’d heard Duran and her yelling at each other, then a few moments of silence, and now the sound of voices he didn’t recognise.  They were shouting incoherently.  “Songbird, you with me?” he said.

Still no reply.

Unsettled, he kept the phone close to his ear as he began to run.  Behind him he could hear the thugs still hammering away at the door.  He only hoped they would be held up long enough for him to get well clear of the hideout.  Outnumbered as he was, there would be no chance of standing up to them in a direct confrontation.

He was going to move a long way from the Reach, he decided.  His sister had
once operated
a small wind farm out in the lowlands, and he hoped that she and her family were still there.  It was a simple existence, and the life expectancy was pretty poor, given the amount of toxins out there, but perhaps he could find happiness again for a little while at least.

He rounded a corner and came face to face with three strangers emerging from the kitchen.  One of them was eating a bowl of Robson’s homemade mush, taking greedy spoonfuls of the stuff and jamming them into his mouth.  The other two carried pistols at their side.

Both Robson and the three intruders stopped suddenly and stood there staring at one another.

“How did you get in here?” Robson said.

“Found a door open,” one of the men said, and the other two laughed.

“I highly doubt that.”  Robson narrowed his eyes.  “Put that down,” he growled at the man with the bowl.  “That’s mine.”

The man glanced down at the bowl as if weighing up whether to comply, then made a deliberate scoop with the spoon and took another mouthful.

“What is this, anyway?” the man said as he chewed.  “Pigeon shit?”

Robson’s hand dropped to the pistol at his hip.  “You do that again, and I’m gonna put a round in your guts.  I’ll make you watch that pigeon shit dribble out of the bullet hole.”

“That so?” the man said, amused.  He dipped the spoon into the bowl again.

Robson snapped the gun out of its holster and let rip, the bullet shattering through the bowl and sending grey mush flying.  The man made a strangled, gurgling sound as the bullet ripped into his belly and fell to the ground.

Robson was already moving to his next target, firing as the second man brought his gun upward and hitting him twice in the chest.  He swivelled again, but the third man was already staring down the barrel at him, and before he could shoot he felt a hideous pain in his chest, and then he was screaming, falling backward as the man fired again and again, and soon he felt no more.

Zoe was still moving slowly toward the glass, and Duran could do nothing but watch.

He couldn’t hear what was happening on the other end of the call, but her face was becoming more bleak by the second.  He thumped on the glass again, and her eyes drifted over him as if he wasn’t even there.  She seemed lost, disconnected.

She looked like someone who had abandoned all hope.

Suddenly there was gunfire from nearby, and newcomers appeared from the adjoining corridors outside the waypoint.  Even from this distance, Duran could see the circular markings on their foreheads.

More Children of Earth.  Shit!

The Enforcers who had bailed Zoe up now spun away to face the new threat, returning fire as they scrambled to find cover.  Sensing the opportunity for her to flee, Duran redoubled his efforts to attract her attention, slamming on the glass with such force that it rattled in the door
frame.

Zoe, however, was not looking at him.  She was listening to the phone with a faraway look in her eye, and then suddenly a look of utter despair came across her face.  Now she lifted desolate eyes to Duran, allowing the holophone to slip from her grip and clatter to the floor.

Behind her, the firefight raged on, but she seemed oblivious to what was going on around her.  Duran saw that two of the Enforcers who had been grappling with the man on the ground had been shot, and now the man was reaching around to his back with a maniacal look in his eye.

“
Zoeee!
” Duran screamed.  He slammed on the door again.  “
Get the fuck out of there!
”

She either couldn’t hear him, or simply didn’t want to.  Her eyes met his one last time, and her lips moved
slightly as she uttered something that may have been an apology, or perhaps a farewell.

Then she slumped to the floor and sat there, defeated.

One of the insurgents hurled a grenade toward the Enforcers and they ducked for cover.

Duran backed up, preparing to take a running leap at the door to try to force it open.  The lights outside flickered as the grenade went off, and then a large black shape seemed to loom over the doorway, like a spectre of death.  Before Duran could focus upon it, an almighty blast shattered the windows before him.  Duran was thrown off his feet and collided painfully with the unyielding floor behind him, and then the world turned to black.

30

Knile had spoken about the Atrium many times before, but Talia wasn’t quite prepared for what she saw when those elevator doors opened.

The place was beautiful, unlike anything else she
had ever seen before.  In some ways she felt that the elevator had transported them not to the top of the Reach, but to another planet entirely.  The Atrium was far more open than she would have imagined, a spacious and uncluttered expanse surrounded by tall, arched columns and a wire balustrade.  The panorama beyond was equally breathtaking, the red sun hanging low and dazzlingly bright over the landscape below.

Toward the centre of the Atrium lay the Stormgates, imposing constructs of black steel that housed glowing blue energy fields within.  Beyond those lay the central column of the Atrium, a thick, rounded pillar that contained the final elevator that would take them upward to where both the roof and the railcar would be waiting.

There were more people here than Talia expected.  Some of them stood at the balustrade, staring out into the emptiness, while others waited near the Stormgates with suitcases at their feet, as if waiting for the gates to magically open and allow them through.  Talia could see a cluster of people just outside one of the Stormgates, discussing something with a Redman on the other side.  A woman with long, unkempt hair stepped forward, a wailing baby held aloft in an obvious attempt to gain sympathy, but the Redman merely shook his head and turned his back on her, leaving both she and the infant stranded.

“Keep it cool,” Silvestri said, walking forward calmly.  The others followed his lead.  “Whatever happens, don’t overreact.”

“What if the chips don’t work?” Yun said.

“Then we’ll figure something out,” Silvestri said.  “We can go back and rework the chips, try again tomorrow.”

Talia wasn’t sure if that were really an option, but she understood where Silvestri was coming from.  If things didn’t go exactly to plan, there was no point in panicking and giving themselves away.  That could only end in disaster.

There were no Enforcers present in the Atrium, she noted.  She recalled Knile saying that the men in black weren’t permitted
by the Consortium to loiter
here, and it seemed that policy hadn’t changed, even in light of recent events.  The fact that the Enforcers weren’t around would work in Skybreach’s favour, she figured, but it wasn’t even close to being a game changer.  The Redmen were still the major stopping block, just as they always had been.

“The Crimson Shield have increased their numbers,” Lazarus rumbled quietly from his wheelchair.

“Yes,” Silvestri said grimly as they walked.  The
arched
Stormgates were nearer now, becoming more imposing by the second.  “There used to be two Redmen.  I count four now.”

“Five,” Lazarus corrected.

Silvestri glanced down at him.  “Is your man Murtas there?”

“No.”

“Well, if you see him, I want you to stick with the plan.  We take the roof first, and then you can do what you need to do.”

Lazarus said nothing, calmly linking his fingers in his lap as he allowed Morgan to push him forward.  Talia wasn’t sure whether Lazarus had acquiesced to Silvestri’s orders, of if he was merely refusing to voice his dissent.  Only time would tell.

She turned back to the Stormgates.  The glowing blue portals were only a few steps away.

Talia’s heart was suddenly thumping in her chest.  The moment of truth had arrived so quickly that now she felt unprepared.  She felt sure that they’d forgotten something, that some important detail had slipped past and now lay waiting to ensnare them at the worst possible moment.  Were Yun’s algorithms correct?  Had the process of manufacturing the chips been carried out correctly?  Was Lazarus’ disguise going to hold?  Was Holger going to say something stupid that would give them all away?

All of these questions flashed through her mind in an instant, but there were no answers.  And now they were so close to the Stormgates that the tiny hairs on her arms were beginning to stand on end.

Somehow she found herself reaching the gates first.  She couldn’t be sure whether the adrenaline pumping through her veins had made her inadvertently walk faster, or if the others had hesitated and fallen behind, but either way she could now feel the energy field pressing against her face, her arms, her belly, like some ethereal sponge that was slowly enveloping her entire body.  The odd sensation altered ever so slightly, and she felt resistance.  Her momentum slowed, as if the Stormgate had suddenly decided to spurn her, and she felt for sure that the chip in her pocket had failed her.  Then the moment passed and the resistance abruptly fell away.  The force seemed to switch to her back, and she felt herself being swept forward, as if she were being carried on a gentle current downstream.

She was through.

She looked back to see the others following her lead, tentatively stepping forward, their bodies momentarily smothered in blue light as they crossed the threshold.

Talia glanced around.  There were no alarms, no Redmen running at them.

They work.  The chips work!

Yun hastened forward, beaming like a kid who had just won first prize at the school science fair.  He stood beside Talia and offered her a wink, breathing a huge sigh of relief as he did so.

“Keep it cool,” Silvestri whispered again, and Yun tried to unsuccessfully wipe the grin from his face.  Silvestri waited as the others followed through, then nodded.  “All present and accounted for.  Let’s move.”

They began to walk toward the elevator in the Atrium’s central column.  Its shining chrome doors were inlaid with an ornate pattern that glinted in the spectral glow of the Stormgates.  A foolish thought came unbidden to Talia – that this was the doorway to
the heavens – and she was forced to brush it away.

Stay focussed.  This isn’t over yet.