Skybreach (The Reach #3) (15 page)

Her fingers brushed against the cold steel of the wrench, and then it was within her grasp.  She swung it with all of her might as she lurched across the floor, and as the man attempted to lift the .22 she brought the wrench down upon the back of his hand.  The man screamed again and the gun dropped from his fingers.

Talia got to one knee and tried to land another blow, but her adversary rolled away.  Stumbling to her feet, she went after him and swung again, cracking him on the elbow.  As the man howled in pain she hefted the wrench again, slamming it against his jaw hard enough to send vibrations up her arm, and the man slumped back to the floor, out cold.

As she stood over him, panting and in pain, she heard movement behind her.  She spun on her heel and found Silvestri there, slick with sweat and with blood trickling from his nose.

“Just like the old days, back on the streets,” he said breathlessly, forcing a grin.  “Good fun, wouldn’t you say?”

“Not really.”  She dropped the wrench on the floor and gathered up the .22.  She straightened and tilted her chin toward the doorway.  “You take care of those guys?”

“Indeed.  But they were tougher than they looked,” he said ruefully.

“They looked pretty tough to begin with.”

“Yes.  That’s what I mean
t
.”  His smile broadened and his golden tooth flashed.

Talia returned the smile wearily as she tucked the .22 back into her belt.

“Let’s get out of here before more ‘fun’ arrives.”

They regathered the canisters they had dropped when the fight began and lugged them out through the doorway and into the corridor.  The two men Silvestri had subdued were lying nearby, their faces bloodied, their bodies stacked on one another like pancakes.

Talia hesitated.  “Are they…?”

“Taking a short nap,” Silvestri said as he moved past.  “They’ll have a headache and some nice bruises when they awaken.”

“Okay,” Talia said, relieved.  “It wouldn’t have been right to–”

There were suddenly vibrations in the floor and the walls around them, as if the place were trying to shake itself apart, and trails of dust began to spill from the cracks in the roof.  Talia staggered, and then a shock wave slammed through the corridor and knocked her to her knees.  She grunted and looked across at Silvestri, who had fallen against one wall.

As she tried to get up, a second shock wave hit them with even more force than the first, and now she could hear the distant sound of shrieking metal and the clatter of large, heavy objects grinding against one another.

She pictured great machines deep within the Reach shaken loose of their shackles and tumbling aside with calamitous effect.

“Oh my god,” Talia breathed, horrified, as the trembling began to subdue.  She climbed to her feet and glanced at Silvestri, who was still leaning against the wall.  When he looked at her she saw the same concern mirrored in his eyes.  “They’ve done it again.”

15

Duran hastened through the dim corridors of Level Fifty-Three as Robson chattered away in his earpiece, his incessant, droning voice like a bug that had crawled into his ear and which couldn’t find its way out again.

“Phoenix, you’re approaching the target.”

“You said that already, Switch,” Duran muttered tersely.  “Twice, in fact.”

“Really?  Damn.  I keep losing track of who I’m talking to.”
  There was a chuckle on the other end of the line
.  “I think this is the first time I’ve ever had to coordinate three operatives at once.  It’s kinda cool.”

Duran adjusted his earpiece as he moved past an old man pushing a trolley in the other direction.  It was filled with groceries and a pack of reconditioned spring top batteries.

“What’s the word from Songbird and…”  He struggled to recall de Villiers’ callsign.  “And Falcon?”

“Songbird is already on her way home.  Her target was benign.”

“What about Falcon?”

“Still investigating.”

Duran thought back to earlier in the morning when the various members of Scimitar had gathered around Robson’s terminal, allocating the day’s tasks.  In the twenty-four hours since they’d begun their hunt for Jozef Gudbrand, they had made little headway.  The guy was a recluse, no doubt about it.  On the few occasions where Robson had tracked down
footage of him moving about the Reach, he had invariably disappeared into an area that was unmonitored, effectively dropping
off the radar.  His followers used the same method of operation, covering their tracks whenever they returned from their forays into Gaslight with unnerving ease.

Robson had estimated the general vicinity in which the cells might have been based, but the areas were too broad to be of any practical use.  It was not as if Duran and the others could go around door knocking until someone with a circle imprinted in their forehead opened up.

As they had reviewed the data this morning, they had come up with only three slight possibilities: the first was the sighting of three members of Children of Earth up in the Plant Rooms, which de Villiers had agreed to investigate; the second, a man who bore a strong resemblance to Gudbrand appearing in Lux, which had been Zoe’s destination; and the third, a facial match of a man wearing janitor clothing here in Gaslight who had been listed as belonging to Children of Earth several weeks prior.

Initially, Duran figured that he had been given the most uninteresting assignment.  They were clutching at straws following this lead.  The facial recognition had only registered at about a seventy percent match, since the guy was wearing a station cap that partially masked him from the camera’s view, and that wasn’t a particularly convincing result.  Duran figured it was probably a mistake, and that he would be back at the Scimitar hideout looking for something else to do in short time.

However, now that he was here on Fifty-Three, he was beginning to sense that all might not be as it seemed.  There were a large number of janitors who had begun to coalesce here in the last ten minutes.  When he’d left Scimitar a short time ago, the cameras had shown the presence of three or four in the area, which was pretty standard, but now there were dozens.

Social meetings for janitors, maintenance crews, and other workers in Gaslight were
not uncommon, he supposed.  He’d just never seen them in quite this kind of concentration.

Duran began to walk up a slight incline toward a more open area where many people were gathered.

“Do you still see my target, Switch?” Duran said.

“Gimme a sec, Phoenix.”
  Duran heard the sound of Robson’s fingers on a keyboard. 
“Yeah, I got it.  Dead ahead.  In the marketplace.  South-eastern corner.”

“Right.  On it.”

Duran entered the marketplace proper and looked around.  There were plenty of Enforcers here aligned in front of the entrance to one of the consulates, part of Prazor’s attempts to provide more protection to Consortium assets.  One of the janitors, an old woman, was arguing loudly with a couple of Enforcers, waving a plastic broom at them as if she were attempting to shoo kids off her front lawn.  The other janitors
had begun to walk away, but they seemed to have taken an interest in the exchange, for now they all turned to watch it.

Duran felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and he promptly forgot about the target.  Robson was chattering in his ear again, but he did not register a single word of what was said.

Now that he was here, standing in front of the marketplace and looking at all the pieces laid out before him, he understood.  The Enforcers, the consulate, the overabundance of janitors.  The way they had all turned to watch the old woman as if waiting for some kind of cue.  The facial recognition match.  Children of Earth.

This is it
, he thought. 
This is the next attack.  I’m standing at ground zero.

“Robson,” he said, unable to keep his voice even, “we’ve got a problem–”

The man in front of Duran turned and began to walk toward him, then stopped.  The two of them stared at each other stupidly.

Duran felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, and the world tilted sickeningly on its axis.  Time and reality itself seemed to freeze, and everything else faded into obscurity.  Th
e consulate, the Enforcers, Children of Earth – they were suddenly nothing more than background noise, a barely perceptible shade of grey in Duran’s vision.

The man before him was Knile Oberend.

In the split second that followed, a dozen thoughts tumbled incoherently through Duran’s head.

What’s he doing here?

Is he somehow caught up in this mess?

Is Knile part of Children of Earth?

And then one thought that trampled its way through the others like a raging bull:
Kill him.

Somewhere nearby there was a scream, and Duran had a moment to savour the look of fear and dread that was plastered across Knile’s face.  Duran pulled his .40 from its holster and began to bring it upward. 

Then the world exploded into fire and the floor bucked under their feet, and Duran slammed into something hard and unyielding.

Duran’s vision began to clear, and he found himself lying on the ground near the wall of the marketplace as people ran past him.  The marketplace had gone dark, lit now by a raging fire on one side that was so intense that Duran could feel the heat of it even from this distance.  He could see the muzzle flashes as janitors moved forward with assault rifles, but he could not hear the reports.  In fact, the only
thing he could hear was a high-pitched whining sound that made him feel disorientated and nauseous.

Just some temporary acoustic trauma.  Get over it.
He climbed to his feet, then suddenly remembered what had happened.

Knile.  He was here.

But now he was gone.  The space that Oberend had occupied a few moments before was now a bare patch of floor.

Find him.

Duran wheeled around.  His .40 was gone as well, and, considering the carnage and confusion around him, he knew there was no point looking for it.

As he raised his eyes, he spied Knile disappearing into a corridor on the edge of the marketplace not far away.  His hearing was beginning to come back to him now, and as he set off in pursuit of Knile he heard screaming, cries of pain, and the sound of flames ravaging the far side of the marketplace.  He heard gunfire as the assault on the consulate continued, and expected to hear the telltale sound of pulse rifles in return, indicating that the Redmen had joined the fray.  However, this did not eventuate, and in moments he found himself in the darkened corridor into which Knile had disappeared not long before.

The power to Level Fifty-Three had been
cut, and as a result, the glow of the overhead lights had been extinguished, replaced by pale red emergency lamps set into the floors.  Shadows danced as people fled in terror from the marketplace, and as their screams echoed throughout the narrow confines of Gaslight, Duran couldn’t help but feel that he had descended into Hell itself.

Blood trickled down the side of his face as he ran, and his ankle shot lances of pain up his leg with every step, but he did not for one second consider slowing down.  He pushed himself on through the pain barrier in pursuit of his quarry.

Up ahead, a cluster of people were trying to squeeze through a narrow doorway, and Duran spotted Knile again, caught up in the throng as he attempted to flee.  Duran’s heart leapt at the very real prospect of catching him, and he lengthened his stride, bearing down on his adversary with a savage grin on his face.

Knile glanced over his shoulder and their eyes met, and Duran hoped to see fear in his opponent, desperation.  He wanted Oberend to squirm like the cornered rat he was, to know that his time was up.

Duran wanted him to suffer, for no reason other than to satisfy his thirst for retribution.

And yet, the look in Knile’s eyes reflected no panic, no desperation.  As he spotted Duran there was a sense of urgency about him, both in his expression and in the way he tried to force himself through the pack of people, but he did not seem discomforted by the sight of Duran closing in.