Skybreach (The Reach #3) (48 page)

“Don’t put your hands on me!” she hissed.  “Don’t ever touch me!”

The look of hurt in his eyes made her feel rotten to the centre of her being.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled, eyes downcast.  “I should learn to keep my fool hands to myself.”

“No,” she said, her voice full of remorse.  Everything she did, everything she said just seemed to end in ruin.  “It’s my fault, Tobias.  I just don’t want to hurt you.”

“Hurt me?” he said.  “Well, a gentle soul like you wouldn’t
hurt
a fly, no?”  His eyes fell upon the bloodied, discarded coat nearby, then back to Ursie.  “Would you?” he said, a tinge of doubt in his voice.

She could only stare back at him helplessly, shaking her head while the voice in her mind told her:
Yes.  Yes I might
.

A klaxon sounded suddenly in the room, causing Ursie to jump and glance about in alarm.  A small light on the wall began to flash, casting the room in a deep vermillion hue.

Finally, they’ve come for me
, she thought.  She almost felt relieved.

Tobias got to his feet.  “Well, that has to be a Code One–”

“Attention,”
a voice sounded over the intercom. 
“Attention.  Evacuate now.  Repeat, evacuate now.  All personnel make your way in an orderly fashion to the evacuation modules located on the western end of the concourse.  Floor guides have been activated for your assistance.  Follow the specified path and do not deviate.  Evacuate now.”

There was a pause, and then the message began over again.

“What’s going on?” Ursie said.

“Something bad.  Something real bad.”  Tobias began to gather his things.  “Never seen the like of it in all my time here.  Come on, we need to hit the track.”

“No,” Ursie said adamantly, tucking her knees up under her chin.  “I’m staying.”

Tobias frowned at her, confused.  “What do you mean?  This ain’t no drill, kiddo.  We need to get out.  My guess is a hull breach or some such, might be a decompression–”

“I’m not leaving, Tobias.  Trust me, it’s better for everyone if I just stay behind.”

Tobias reached out to her again, intending to drag her to her feet, but just then the longwave on the side of the cot began to ring.  Tobias glanced down at it, then over at Ursie.

“Your friends?”

“Maybe,” Ursie said noncommittally, not bothering to even look at the longwave.

“Bring it with you, and let’s get out of here.”

Ursie wasn’t sure if there was a point in answering the longwave.  Assuming it was Knile, there wasn’t a lot she could do for him right now.  She was in no position to start hunting around for more
floorplans
, or whatever it was he wanted.  She just felt like curling up in a ball and shutting herself away from the world before she could hurt anyone else.

Tobias picked up the longwave and held it out for her.

“This might be the last chance you get to talk to ’em,” he said softly.

Ursie looked into Tobias’ eyes for a moment, then down at the longwave.  Reluctantly, she reached out and took it from him, then answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Ursie, it’s Knile.”

“Hey.  Uh, this is kinda a bad time right now–”

“I’m in the railcar.”

Ursie sat bolt upright in the cot.  “What?”

“I’m on my way up to the habitat right now, along with some friends.”

“But… how?”

“Sorry, I don’t have time to explain that right now.  I need your help.”

“Wait a minute, Knile.  How are you–?”

“Ursie, I need you.  I need your help, or we all die.”

The urgency in his voice cut through her stupor and she finally came back to her senses, her self-loathing and despair temporarily forgotten.

This was the moment she’d been waiting for, she realised.  Her chance at redemption.  Her chance to do something right.

“What can I do?”

“My companions and I were headed up the Wire to escape Earth, but someone planted explosives on the railcar without our knowledge.  They’re trying to destroy the entire habitat.”

“Holy shit, that must be the reason for the evacuation.”

“Evacuation?”

“Yeah, there’s alarms going off all over the place up here.  They’re saying we need to
get out.”

There was a pause. 
“Look, I’m not going to lie to you, Ursie.  What I’m going to ask of you is dangerous.  The safe thing for you to do is to join the others and
leave while you still can.”

“No, I’m in.  I told you I wanted to help, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“All right.  Here’s the deal.  The bomb is in the cargo hold of the railcar.  It’s set to go off in less than thirty minutes.  What I need is to talk to one of the techs who control the railcar from that end.  I need to find out if there’s a way to get rid of the contents of the cargo hold before we arrive.  I figured you might be able to use your abilities to get inside their heads, or whatever.  You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I can try,” Ursie said, getting to her feet with a purpose.  “But I can’t guarantee anything.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“How did this happen, Knile?  How did you take over the damn railcar?  What about the Redmen?”

“No time to talk about that now.  I have a few more calls to make.  I have to go.”

“Okay.”

“You know where to reach me if you find anything.”

“Yeah.  Talk to you soon.”

As she hung up, a part of her mind was screaming at her to stop, telling her that if she walked outside the tiny apartment, it would all end badly.  That someone else would get hurt.

She stared down at her hands, at the fingers that had touched and violated the Redman only an hour ago.

How can you even think of using your powers again, you goddamn psychopath?

The door opened, and Ursie turned to see Tobias stepping out.  He stood there waiting with the door held open expectantly.

“Tobias, what are you doing?”

Her gave her a smile that crinkled the lines around his eyes.  “I’m coming with you.”

Knile called Yun again, his mind whirring with possibilities as he sought to find a way out of this predicament.

“Yun, do you still have those Consortium techs down there with you?”

“Yeah, they’re here, but if you’re hoping for a miracle fix for our little problem, you’re going to be disappointed.”

“Why?”

“They don’t know anything that could help.  Silvestri has already interrogated them.  They’re trained in manipulating the railcar from this end, but they don’t know much about what goes on up at the habitat.”

“You sure about that?”

“Uh, yeah.  Silvestri was pretty thorough with them.  Broke one of the guy’s fingers, threatened to throw the other off the roof.  They’d have chirped if they knew anything.”

“Listen,” Knile said.  “You guys should cut loose.  If we can’t stop this explosion, and the Wire becomes untethered from this end, I wouldn’t like to think of what would happen to the Reach.  It’s going to make a mess of the place if it comes down.”

“We’re not going anywhere yet, Knile.  Hang in there.”

“Okay.  Let me know if you hear anything else.”

Knile closed the call, and it was only then that he realised that the thumping sound from earlier had not ceased.  Lazarus was still bashing at the perspex bubble of his compartment like a madman.

“Lazarus, will you knock it off?  You’re going to–”

Knile leaned forward to get a visual on Lazarus’ compartment, and what he saw horrified him.

There was a thin jet of gas streaming from its exterior.

“For fuck’s sake, Lazarus!  You’re venting oxygen into space.  You’re going to get us all killed!”

“No,”
Lazarus said. 
“The compartments are self-contained.  It is my own safety that I am jeopardising.”

“Do what he says, you dumb fuck,”
Holger said.
“You’re not helping.”

But the Redman continued to hammer away regardless.

The habitat seemed utterly changed from how it had been only an hour ago.  Warning lamps glimmered brightly, coating the shining metal handrails and walls in red, and glowing chevrons flashed in a flowing sequence in the floor under Ursie’s feet, guiding her and the other citizens toward the safety of the evacuation modules.

People were hastening past on the concourse, and any thoughts Ursie might have had of being confronted about the incident with the Redmen were quickly swept away.  No one seemed concerned with anything other than getting out of the habitat in the quickest way possible.

Tobias caught up and stood with her as they watched the crowd filter urgently past.

“You should go with them, Tobias,” she said.  “While you have the chance.”

“I said I was coming with you, no?  That’s how it is.”

She stared up at him.  “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

He seemed to consider that.  “I know you have a good heart.  That’s all that matters.”

She could see that she wasn’t going to get through to him, and she didn’t have any time left in which to dissuade him.
  For better or worse, he was coming along.

“
Okay. 
How do we get to the OrbitPod technicians?”

Tobias pointed.  “That way.”

They headed off in the opposite direction to the flow of traffic, hustling their way through the crowd as quickly as they could.  Ursie kept her hands to herself.  She didn’t know what might happen should she inadvertently brush her
fingers
across the skin of a passerby.  Her contact with the Redman earlier, while devastating for him, had been somewhat disorientating for her as well.  Forming a mental link of such power was something new to her, and she wasn’t sure how she might react should it happen again.

“Down that corridor,” Tobias said.  They deviated their course accordingly, and soon found themselves in a far quieter section of walkway.  As they rounded another corner, Heketoro suddenly appeared, his face red as he dashed toward them.  Before Ursie could react, he reached out to grab her arm.

“You guys are going the wrong–”

He froze as his fingers wrapped around her bare forearm, and Ursie suddenly found herself flooding into his mind, as if she were liquid poured from one cup into another.  She permeated every part of his consciousness in an instant, absorbing his sensations, his memories, his thoughts and fears, and just like the experience with the Redman, she felt as though she were literally standing in his shoes, wearing his clothes.

The rapidity of the transition was once again shocking to Ursie.  Even though she had done this very thing only an hour before,
she was not even close to becoming
accustomed to the immersiveness of the experience.  The two of them stood, locked together, and in mere moments she had begun to share Heketoro’s understanding of the habitat, of the technical gadgets he worked with, his favourite foods.  His hopes and aspirations, his dreams.